Mr. Nice Guy

Mr. Nice Guy (Yat Goh Ho Yan) (1997)

Runtime: I saw the American 88 minute version

Directed by: Sammo Hung

Starring: Jackie Chan, Richard Norton, Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, Miki Lee, Karen McLymont

From: Golden Harvest

Not top-tier Jackie, but it’s still fine and still gives me some things to discuss. I’ve never experienced the original Hong Kong cut; instead it was the American version which was edited down… from what I hear, among other things it takes out a lot of abuse as women which is not a decision I will argue against. Bizarrely, I noticed just now that the version on YouTube is longer than what I watched last night… irregardless, it’s a movie first seen at the cinema (thankfully I’ve seen a few of Jackie’s films that way) and it happened to be a screening where two people I knew from high school were also there so I sat by them.

We all enjoyed the movie-and because me and my pals were teenage boys at the time, excitement was had at the scene where Gabrielle Fitzpatrick’s character was running around downtown Melbourne, Australia in just her underwear! We were all young and dumb then… plus, from another review on Letterboxd such footage in a film is a Director Trademark for the guy that sat in the chair for this, which was none other than Sammo Hung. In this movie rather blatantly “inspired” by Rumble in the Bronx, Jackie plays a chef who hosts a television show w/ Barry Otto. Via circumstances he runs across a television reporter who films a drug deal gone wrong and both sides are after her VHS tape. It’s a rather hoary plot even by the late 90’s yet for as silly and disposable as the story is, at least Mr. Nice Guy delivers on the action front.

It has the inventive martial arts alongside the comedy Chan is legendary for, in an Aussie setting that adds a different flavor. There’s also caricatures that comprise most of the villains, although Richard Norton-shock of shocks-plays the lead bad guy and relishes the role of being an awful SOB drug dealer who is also OCD when it comes to cleanliness. Eventually I’ll get to some more highly regarded Chan that are currently blind spots for me but I was happy to check out something that I had watched after the cinema, albeit a long time ago… and discovered that the action beats still were a delight.