Jackie Chan is still making movies despite being quite up there in age. In fact he’s 63 years old, but that hasn’t stopped the action star from appearing in action movies. His latest film is called The Foreigner, and it’s a serious thriller.
The movie reminds me of the old Dr. Seuss book taken to extreme heights, a bit like Green Eggs & Ham: With A Vengeance. Jackie Chan’s character in the movie loses his daughter to a terrorist explosion in London, England. He’s convinced that a former IRA diplomat, played by Jambes Bond alumni Pierce Brosnan, working in the London embassy has ties to the terrorists. Chan keeps asking about the names of the terrorists and he keeps getting brushed to the side and ignored by Brosnan, who claims he doesn’t know. Chan then begins to escalate things to Taken levels in order to get information out of Brosnan and his men.
There’s about 10 tons worth of awesome in that two minute trailer, and I couldn’t stop smiling the entire way through.
Everything about that trailer was done perfectly; the suspense, the build-up, the tension, the action. They managed to showcase all the good bits without spoiling the movie, which is something that’s become extremely rare in today’s movie business.
A lot of people are saying this film is like John Wick meets Taken, and I can’t say that’s far off. It also reminds me a little bit of I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead and Dead Man Down, two flicks that also had a similar revenge theme to The Foreigner.
The highlight of the trailer is that we finally get to see Jackie Chan in a serious thriller after all these years. Sure he was in The Shinjuku Incident, and sure the later Police Stories were more crime-dramas than actual action-thrillers, but this film here from Martin Campbell looks to tie together the intensity of thrillers like Non-Stop or Taken and combine them with Chan’s intrinsic nature to whoop butt and take names using a variety of household objects and martial arts prowess.
This film probably would have also been perfectly suited for Donnie Yen, who’s still young enough to jump, leap and run without too many problems, but it’s still nice to see Jackie Chan kicking butt and taking names at the ripe age of 63.
You can look for The Foreigner to land in a theater near you beginning this October.
