The Myth is directed by Stanley Tong, but is produced by and starring Jackie Chan as both Jack Chan and General Meng Yi. Having been filmed in Hong Kong it never made it to mainstream cinema in the West and was instead relegated to a DVD / Blu-Ray only release.
It's a Jackie Chan movie so you know what to expect from it really - martial arts with a slightly clumsy comic style to bring some degree of comedy to the film. Fortunately this is no Rush Hour 3, but it does still have it's moments where I couldn't help but think of ways the film could have been improved. One of the things I liked about this film is that it had Jackie speaking his native tongue rather than the American he's forced to speak for Western cinema; though I think his voice for Meng-Yi may have been dubbed. I did hear there is a dubbed version The DVD version I got did come with an English dub but I'm not sure why you'd want that version - it distracts from the story that the film is trying to tell especially by the fact that they even got someone else to voice Jackie Chan's characters which is off-putting as you know what he should sound like.
The film starts with Jackie playing General Meng Yi, a soldier assigned to protect the Korean Princess Ok-Soo on her journey back to China to become a consort of the Emperor. Things don't go according to plan though and they are ambushed by another General who has shown his affections for the Princess. The two generals do battle, both holding on to the Princess' carriage to avoid it going over the cliff and as expected Meng Yi wins the fight. In order to save the Princess though he has to dive off the cliff to catch her and that's where we first get introduced to Jack Chan.
It's at this point in the film it becomes obvious this is a film of two stories, just as I was in two minds as to whether the film was going to be any good. We soon learn that Jack Chan is an archaeologist and his friend appears to be a scientist working for a foundation and that Jack has been getting these dreams for a while which caused his last relationship to go sour after dreaming about Ok-Soo. Together they go off in search of a secret that allows a holy man to fly which is connected to a legend of a floating coffin. As you would expect there is some dramatic fighting where Jack uses his surroundings to his advantage as always. More importantly though he discovers Meng Yi's sword and a painting of Ok-Soo which then leads him to question the meaning of his dreams after another daydream where he "remembers" the painting being created.
In the chase that follows his friend escapes in a helicopter with the piece of meteorite that causes the levitation, and Jack falls off a cliff into the water below where he is carried off to where he is found by a woman with an elephant. During this time there is another flashback to when Meng Yi fell off the cliff and had to fight off soldiers but was injured in the process. Ok-Soo then tends to his wounds despite him telling her not to as he is below her station, and that is how the flashbacks continue to flow. Every now and then he does something to save the Princess and by the time they return to China she has fallen for him and does not want to become a consort of the Emperor.What I find interesting here is that the subtitles translate what they discuss and refers to not being able to fight "Destiny". The importance of this is that the capitalisation of the first letter infers that they believe in an embodiment of destiny which is probably referring to the Chinese god Fu-Hsi (which they would have during the time period this was set).
Back in the present day Jack learns that what he is dreaming are memories of a previous life when he was Meng Yi and he finds he is proficient with the sword. Unfortunately for Jack the "police" find him for desecrating their temple and a short chase ensues with another comical fight. The film continues switching between the historic setting and the present day until they get to the tomb where the Emperor was buried in the present day. We then learn how Meng Yi died and that Ok-Soo is still alive.
I think I really wanted to like this film as the historic side of the film was great in places though there were too many scenes that let the film down. If this was Jackie Chan attempting to achieve what Jet Li did with Fearless then I'm afraid he failed. If you go into this film with low expectations and just wanting a film you don't have to think about then you'll probably enjoy it, but otherwise you may find this too lacking in substance to bother with. I would like to see Jackie Chan do more Hong Kong movies in his own language, with more serious acting and martial arts. This one tried to be too comical.
