Jackie Chan Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,’ starring the voices of Nicolas Cantu, Brady Noon, Shamon Brown Jr., Micah Abbey, Ayo Edebiri, Ice Cube and Jackie Chan

July 31, 2023

by Carla Hay

Michelangelo, aka Mikey (voiced by Shamon Brown Jr.); Donatello, aka Donnie (voiced by Micah Abbey); Leonardo, aka Leo (voiced by Nicolas Cantu); and Raphael, aka Raph (voiced by Brady Noon), in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” (Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”

Directed by Jeff Rowe; co-directed by Kyler Spears

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the animated film “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” features a cast of characters portraying mutant animals and a racially diverse mix of humans representing the middle-class and working-class.

Culture Clash: Four crime-fighting hero brothers, who happen to be teenage mutant ninja turtles, team up with a teenage aspiring journalist, to stop a mutant insect named Superfly from his plans to enslave and torture humans worldwide.

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious target audience of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” franchise fans, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching comical adventure animation that various generations of people can enjoy.

April O’Neil (voiced by Ayo Edebiri); Raphael, aka Raph (voiced by Brady Noon)l Leonardo, aka Leo (voiced by Nicolas Cantu); Donatello, aka Donnie (voiced by Micah Abbey); and Michelangelo, aka Mikey (voiced by Shamon Brown Jr.), in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” (Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” is a vibrant example of how good storytelling, talented cast members, and appealing visuals can make animation the ideal format for the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” franchise. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” started out as a comic book series in 1984. It has since spawned several animated series and films (live-action and animated), as well as albums, live tours and a seemingly never-ending supply of merchandise. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” is among the best of what the franchise has to offer.

Directed by Jeff Rowe and co-directed by Kyler Spears, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” doesn’t do anything radically different with the basic concept of the franchise. The story still takes place in New York City, where four teenage mutant ninja turtle brothers grew up in the city’s sewers and now fight crime. Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jeff Rowe, Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit wrote the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” screenplay.

What’s different about “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” is that the movie is much more centered around the teenage characters than the live-action “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movies, which tended to give human adults about the same amount of screen time. The chief villain in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” is not human, but a giant mutant insect named Superfly.

The four mutant turtles brothers have distinct personalities, signature colors and preferred weapons that identify each brother.

Michelangelo, also known as Mikey (voiced by Shamon Brown Jr.), is the level-headed leader of the group. His signature color is blue. His preferred weapons are katanas.
Raphael, also known as Raph (voiced by Brady Noon), is the hot-tempered and physically strongest brother, who often clashes with Mike over decisions. Raph’s signature color is red. His preferred weapons are sai.
Donatello, also known as Donnie (voiced by Micah Abbey), is the mild-mannered tech expert of the group and the brother who’s most likely to be a peacemaker in fights between Mikey and Raph. Donnie’s signature color is purple. His preferred weapon is an oak Bō.
Leonardo, also known as Leo (voiced by Nicolas Cantu), is the goofy and impulsive brother who is the one most likely to want to party. His signature color is orange. His preferred weapons are nunchucks.

Do viewers have to know the above information about the brothers before seeing “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”? No, but it helps viewers tell these characters apart quicker than viewers who are unfamiliar with these characters. The brothers’ origin story is explained early in the movie, which generally does a good job of setting up the story for people who might be seeing these characters for the first time.

In the beginning of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” it’s shown how these mutant characters came to be. An eccentric scientist names Baxter Stockman (voiced by Giancarlo Esposito) went rogue and created mutants from animals that he kept in his lab. His lab was eventually raided by the government. Stockman died during this raid, but he left behind a toxic ooze that can turn any being into a mutant.

Four baby turtles managed to escape from the raid and were found and raised by a mutant rat Splinter (voiced by Jackie Chan), a jaded but very overprotective adoptive father who kept the four brothers hidden in the sewers with. When the brothers became old enough to be curious about the outside world where humans live, Splinter reluctantly gave in to the brothers’ pestering to take them outside.

The experience did not go well at all. Upon emerging in the middle of Times Square, this mutant family was attacked and taunted by humans, out of fear and hatred. Splinter vowed never to take the brothers above ground again. But now that the brothers are teenagers, they want to defy a parent’s rules, as teenagers tend to do. These brother turtles have been sneaking out at night and fighting crimes, but they have to do so in disguise (they wear masks) and as mysterious and elusive heroes.

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” has many themes about “fitting in” to society, trying to find self-acceptance, and experiencing prejudice based on outward appearances. The turtle brothers long to be part of the human world but can only watch from a certain distance. While many human teenagers in high school think school is to confining, the turtle brothers feel confined in their own environment and are fascinated with wanting to go to high school, which represents freedom to the turtle brothers.

One night, the turtle brothers help a human teenager named April O’Neil (voiced by Ayo Edebiri), who’s about 16 or 17 years old, after her scooter is stolen. (The character of April is usually an adult in other “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle” stories.) April (who is an aspiring investigative journalist) is smart and witty, but she has her own “misfit” issues because she’s bullied at school and is somewhat of a social outcast with her student peers. She’s been given the unflattering nickname Puke Girl by some of the school bullies because of an incident when she vomited out of nervousness during the school’s live closed-circuit TV newscast. Meanwhile, Mikey develops a crush on April and gets a little bit of teasing about it from Raph.

The word is out that there’s a criminal mastermind who’s plotting to destroy the world. His named is Superfly (voiced by Ice Cube), a swaggering mutant insect, who has a hatred of humans because of the way he was treated by humans. Superfly has a gang of mutant accomplices, of course. These sidekicks include Leatherhead (voiced by Rose Byrne), Mondo Gecko (voiced by Paul Rudd), Ray Fillet (voiced by Post Malone), Genghis Frog (voiced by Hannibal Buress) and Wingnut (voiced by Natasia Demetriou).

The turtle brothers team up with April to try to stop Superfly, with the hope that if they succeed, then human society will finally accept the turtle brothers. In addition to battling Superfly, the turtle brothers also have to contend with a nemesis named Cynthia Utrom (voiced by Maya Rudolph), a government official who was responsible for the raid that led to Dr. Stockman’s demise. Cynthia is menacing in a bureaucratic way, unlike Superfly’s street-tough methods. Other supporting characters are two dimwitted mutants: warthog Bebop (played by Rogen, one of the producers of the movie) and rhinoceros Rocksteady (voiced by John Cena), who both bring some comic relief with their buffonery.

All of the principal cast members do admirable jobs of making their characters memorable and with identifable personalities, while the animation is a combination of gritty and gorgeous. Superfly is a ruthless “gangster” villain (Ice Cube plays this role to the hilt), but the movie also shows Superfly as an example of someone who was bullied who ends up becoming a worse bully than his tormentors. Another standout is Edebiri in her voice role as April, who has a lot of heart and relatable humanity, thanks to Edebiri’s engaging performance.

Fortunately for viewers, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” doesn’t over-complicate its “good versus evil” plot. The action sequences are entertaining to watch, while the dialogue is often laugh-out-loud funny. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” doesn’t get preachy about it, but amid all the cartoonish fun is a cautionary message about the repercussions of mistreating others. The movie ends on a cliffhanger, but there’s so much to like about “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” many viewers will still want a sequel, even if there had been no cliffhanger.

Paramount Pictures will release “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” in U.S. cinemas on August 2, 2023.

Review: ‘Ride On,’ starring Jackie Chan, Liu Haocun and Guo Qilin

April 15, 2023

by Carla Hay

“Ride On”

Directed by Larry Yang

Mandarin with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in various cities in China, the comedy/drama film “Devil’s Peak” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A has-been stunt man gets his beloved stunt horse taken away from him as part of a debt collection, and he fights to get the horse back with the help of his formerly estranged daughter and her attorney boyfriend.

Culture Audience: “Ride On” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Jackie Chan and movies about close relationships between intelligent pet horses and their devoted owners.

Liu Haocun in “Ride On” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA and Shanghai Pictures)

“Ride On” is unapologetically sentimental, but it’s mushy in all the right places. This comedy/drama could have used better film editing, but people who like movies about lovable horses should find something to like about “Ride On.” Yes, it’s one of those movies where visual effects, animal tricks and strategic film editing make the horse act more “human” than a horse would in real life, but the horse in the movie is so charming, it’s easy to go along with this fairy-tale-like story.

Written and directed by Larry Yang, “Ride On” begins by showing that divorced, middle-aged Lao Luo Zilong (played by Jackie Chan), also known as Luo, is a longtime stunt performer who has recently fallen on hard times. Luo and his longtime stunt horse Red Hare aren’t working as much as they used to because many filmmakers are using digital visual effects, instead of practical effects, for their movie stunts. Luo has an “old school” mentality and stubbornly refuses to accept these changes in moviemaking. To make money, he tres to get tourists to pose for photos with him an Red Hare at the movie studio where he and he horse did a lot of stunt work.

Luo is heavily in debt for a few reasons other than not working as much as he used to work. Those other reasons are explained later in the movie. As a result of his debt, Luo has been living in a ramshackle barn with Red Hare. Luo has been in a dispute with a corporation called DY Capital that has won a lawsuit to seize Luo’s assets. One day, debt collectors arrive and take away Red Hare, despite Luo’s vigorous attempts to prevent them from removing his beloved horse.

Luo’s estranged daughter Xiao Bao (played by Liu Haocun), who is a law student her 20s, happens to see Luo on day in a pathetic situation where he is practically begging people to pose for photos with him and Red Hare. Bao has a lot of bitterness toward her father, who has been mostly out of her life since Bao’s parents split up when she was a child. Bao’s deceased mother passed away from an unnamed terminal illness. Flashbacks show that Luo was mostly an absentee dad because of his busy work schedule and because he was unreliable when it came to spending quality time with his mother.

Bao and her mother eventually didn’t really want him around because of Luo’s pattern of not keeping his promises. Luo’s visitations with Luo became filled with more tension and became less frequent as their estrangement grew. Luo has been so out of touch with what’s going on in Bao’s recent life, he’s surprised when she tells him that she’s has a boyfriend.

Bao’s boyfriend, who’s about the same age as he is, happens to be a fairly new attorney. His name is Lu Naihua, also known as Mickey (played by Guo Qilin), who is sweet and very nerdy. As a stunt man, Luo is athletic and not afraid of taking physical risks. Mickey is almost the opposite, so there are a few comical scenes of Luo teaching a fumbling Mickey how to do things such as martial arts and horse riding.

When Luo confides in Bao about his financial problems and how he wants to get Red Hare back, at first Bao wants nothing do with helping Luo. But then, she changes her mind and says that she and Mickey will help Lao. A video of Luo and Red Hare resisting the debt collectors goes viral on the Internet, and most of the public sides with Luo. DY Capital still fights to keep Red Hare, so the dispute ends up in court. All of this information is already revealed in the trailer for “Ride On.”

Even though Luo is broke, he has two loyal apprentices who become part of the shenanigans that ensue: goofy Yuanjie (played by Wu Jing) and his no-nonsense wife Yingzi (played by Joey Yung). The two spouses helped take care of Red Hare, so they care very attached to the horse too. The movie’s “villain” is He Xin (played by Yu Rongguang), the wealthy CEO of DY Capital.

“Ride On” could have taken any number of different narratives to get to the inevitable ending. The movie doesn’t show a lot of preparation for the courtroom battle over Red Hare. Instead, “Ride On” shows a lot of flashbacks of how the relationship developed over the years between Luo and Red Hare at almost the same time that Luo’s relationship with Bao was falling apart.

There’s a very poignant scene where Luo first saw Red Hare, who was born with a lung problems and a leg deformity and was expected to undergo euthanasia until Luo intervened. The bond between Luo and Red Hare was immediate. Luo personally helped Red Hare get physically rehabilitated and then trained as a stunt performer.

The movie has more impactful scenes of a younger Bao experiencing heartache over her strained relationship with her father, while Luo feels guilt and shame for not being able to be the father that he knows he should be. Bao and Luo’s relationship continues to go through ups and downs during the course of the movie, since they have a lot of issues that don’t go away after they’ve reconciled.

As adorable as many of the horse scenes are, “Ride On” stumbles when it comes to the flashback stunt scenes, which look very fake. (A lot of obvious visual effects were used for gravity-defying stunts.) The movie should have stuck more to realism in these stunt scenes, instead of making Red Hare look like some kind of superhero horse. It’s ironic that Ride On” relies so much on these stunt visual effects, which is the same kind of filmmaking that has put stunt performers such as Luo and Red Hare out of work. Shi Yanneng has a supporting role in “Ride On” as Dawei, a former protégé of Luo’s who tries to help Luo find stunt work in a new movie.

Because of the sometimes choppy film editing, the flashbacks don’t flow as smoothly as it could for the movie’s overall narrative. At a certain point, “Ride On” becomes too caught up in the flashbacks, and viewers will be wondering when the movie is going to get to the dispute between Luo and DY Capital over who will get to keep Red Hare. Some of Luo’s flashbacks are actually clips from Chan’s real-life past movies, which can be unnecessary distractions that take viewers out of this fictional story.

Despite its flaws, “Ride On” keeps a brisk pace and has balanced mix of comedy and drama. The cast members’ performances are good but not outstanding. It’s a mostly enjoyable film for people who want to see a positive story where a domesticated pet is treated like a member of a human family, and human family members find a new way to connect with each other.

Well Go USA released “Ride On” in select U.S. cinemas, and Shanghai Pictures released the movie in China on April 7, 2023.

Review: ‘Iron Mask,’ starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Flemyng and Jackie Chan

January 16, 2021

by Carla Hay

“Iron Mask”

Directed by Oleg Stepchenko

Culture Representation: Taking place in England, Russia and China, the action-adventure film “Iron Mask” has a cast of white people and Asians representing the working-class, royalty and the criminal underground.

Culture Clash: An adventurer teams up with a princess disguised as a teenage boy to rescue the princess’ imprisoned father and save a magical dragon that has been taken over by an evil witch and her group of wizards.

Culture Audience: “Iron Mask” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching nonsensical and poorly acted action flicks.

Jason Flemyng, Anna Churina and Xingtong Yao in “Iron Mask” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“Iron Mask” is one of those movies that’s so horrendous, it’s like an insulting parody of a bad movie. “Iron Mask” (sloppily directed by Oleg Stepchenko, who co-wrote the insipid screenplay with Alexey A. Petrukhin) looks like it has a budget that was spent mostly on the production design (some of the set designs are fairly elaborate); the often-tacky visual effects; and the salaries of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan, who get top billing. However, these two past-their-prime action stars are each in “Iron Mask” for less than 20 minutes of this two-hour muddled mess of a film. That skimpy screen time should be enough of an indication how much of a shameless ripoff “Iron Mask” is to mislead viewers into thinking that Schwarzenegger and Chan are the central characters in the movie. They’re not.

In reality, “Iron Mask” is a bloated slog of terrible acting and time-wasting scenes where there are pointless fights that all lead to a predictable and very cheesy ending. It’s the kind of dreck that, if people have the patience to watch the whole thing without falling asleep, they’ll forget almost everything about the movie not long after watching it. It’s not only mind-numbingly bad, but it’s also very boring.

You know how movies look where people speak in another language but their voices are overdubbed with another language? “Iron Mask” (whose convoluted story takes place mostly in England, Russia and China) is that type of movie. It has an international cast, and there are scenes where it’s obvious that people spoke another language when filming the movie but then it was overdubbed in English for release in English-speaking countries. The weird thing is that the audio doesn’t quite synch up well throughout the entire movie, so it looks like even the actors who speak English have overdubbing. That’s how carelessly the film was made.

“Iron Mask” was previously titled “The Mystery of the Dragon Seal,” which is a more appealing title, but it still doesn’t change how badly this movie was made. Here’s the gist of the plot, as it’s explained in the beginning of the film with voiceover narration that’s supposed to sound mystical: In a land far, far away, there lived a creature called the Great Dragon, whose eyelashes went deep into the ground and came up as plants that were made into tea. (Try not to laugh at the ludicrousness of this concept.) The land where the dragon lives is supposed to be an alternate fantasy version of China.

Humans called white wizards were entrusted with the tea. The dragon has a special white seal, which the dragon gave to two white wizards whom the dragon trusted the most: a man named Master (played by Chan) and his princess daughter named Cheng Lan (played by Xingtong Yao). But since movies like this need villains, it’s explained that some of the wizards got greedy, went to the dark side, and called themselves black wizards. These black wizards aligned with an evil witch (played by Li Ma), who led them in an army that took control of the dragon so they could steal all the tea and sell it for their own financial gain.

The witch and the black wizards stopped trimming the dragon’s eyelashes, so the dragon’s eyes became too heavy, and the dragon fell into a deep sleep. The white wizards fought to free the dragon, but they were defeated by the black wizards. As a result, Master and his daughter Cheng Lan were imprisoned on opposite sides of Europe.

Master ends up in the Tower Grey Prison in England, while Cheng Lan ends up in a prison in Russia. Schwarzenegger’s role in the film is a little out-of-place and bizarre. He plays James Hook (as in pirate Captain James Hook, albeit with Schwarzenegger’s heavy German accent), who acts as a prison warden for the Tower Grey Prison, but he’s decked out the whole time in a red and white pirate suit. It’s as ridiculous as it sounds.

Meanwhile, the story’s main character is a Brit named Jonathan Green (played by Jason Flemyng), who is shown being chased off the estate of a nobleman called Lord Dudley (played by Charles Dance), who is very upset with Jonathan. Why? Because Lord Dudley doesn’t want Jonathan to be with his daughter Miss Dudley (played by Anna Churina), a somewhat prissy heiress who’s in love with Jonathan.

The movie doesn’t make it clear if Miss Dudley and Jonathan are married or not. The “miss” title in her name implies that she’s not married, but then later in the movie, she refers to Jonathan as her “husband.” Whatever their marital status, Jonathan and Miss Dudley have a son together, who’s about 4 or 5 years old, so Lord Dudley can’t get rid of Jonathan that easily.

After being banished from the Dudley estate, Jonathan travels to Russia, where he saw an ancient creature with countless eyes called Viy, which has the ability to read minds. There are also Russians called Cossacks who can turn into creatures. It’s just an excuse to pile on some visual effects that don’t do much to improve this poorly written story.

Jonathan ends up in a Russian prison, and there’s a silly plot development involving a messenger pigeon that leads to Jonathan taking it upon himself to rescuing Master and Cheng Lan; saving the Great Dragon; defeating the villains led by the witch; and going back to England to reunite with Miss Dudley and their son so they can all live happily ever after. Jonathan is released from the prison by Peter the Great, also known as Iron Mask (played by Yuri Kolokolnikov), who’s kind of a useless and annoying character, even though the movie’s title was named for him. Rutger Hauer (who died in 2019) has a much smaller and forgettable role as an ambassador character.

As you can imagine, this loopy saga involves a lot of globetrotting, and there are huge portions of the film that take place on a pirate ship (cue the swashbuckling) and on battle fields. And presumably to appeal to kids, the movie has a creature that looks like a cute blue stuffed toy monkey with wings. This CGI-created creature tags along with Jonathan when he goes to rescue Cheng Lan while they travel by carriage and are confronted by a gang of thieves.

For her protection, Cheng Lan has disguised herself as a teenage boy. It’s not a convincing disguise, but she manages to fool Jonathan for most of the story anyway. Miss Dudley hears that Jonathan has gone to rescue a beautiful princess, and she gets jealous. So there’s a dumb subplot of Miss Dudley flouncing off to Russia to try to track down her man.

Miss Dudley ends up disguising herself briefly as a male pirate to get on board a ship that’s bound for China. Just like Cheng Lan, Miss Dudley also looks very unconvincing “disguised” as someone of the opposite sex. The movie can’t even get it right when it dresses up women up in drag. Whatever this fantasy world is in “Iron Mask,” it’s clear that it’s a world where the “good” women aren’t taken seriously as men are taken seriously, when it comes to being strong leaders and fighters, so the women have to disguise themselves as men to get things done. However, the movie has no problem making the chief villain a woman who doesn’t disguise herself as a man.

There’s also some underlying sexism when James Hook comments on an elderly man who died in the Tower Grey Prison: “At least he died happy,” and adds an explanation for why this man died happy: “As far as I know, he hasn’t seen a woman in 30 years.”

James Hook and Master have an inevitable fight scene where there’s more crappy dialogue that’s fails miserably at being funny. While the two adversaries are fighting with swords, James Hook’s hair gets cut off, while Master’s long beard gets shortened. Master tells Hook, “You look better this way.” Hook comments to Master on his new look: “You look younger.” Master replies, “Do I?” And then they resume fighting.

Cheesy jokes aside, “Iron Mask” looks like a movie made by people who wanted to waste millions in production money to make a live-action version of a very badly conceived cartoon. The characters are bland and unappealing. And the actors seem to know it too, because there’s no real enthusiasm or sincerity in their performances. And the amateurish direction gives the impression that a robot could’ve done a better job directing this movie. There are bad movies that are sometimes fun to watch, but “Iron Mask” is just a cringeworthy chore to watch.

Lionsgate released “Iron Mask” on digital and VOD on November 20, 2020, and on Blu-ray and DVD on November 24, 2020.