Jackie Chan's Who Am I?

A bigger movie, shot in Africa and Rotterdam, Holland, but also with terrible acting, shockingly bad CGI, and lousy plot mechanics, Who Am I? is the first Jackie Chan movie I've seen where the best part is a car chase.

Chan is a Special Forces paratrooper whose unit is betrayed so the bad guys can steal a magical meteorite chunk that holds the secret to unlimited power. Everyone in his unit dies except Chan, who survives the helicopter crash, breaks his arm and leg, and wakes up with amnesia in a primitive Namibian village. He lives with the friendly natives long enough to heal his arm and leg and somehow learn their language? He starts to put the pieces together about his life and hitches a ride back to civilization with Yuki, an adorable rally race driver (Mirai Yamamoto). The African tribesman jokes are benign, thank God! Once back in the big city, Chan is pursued by the evil CIA guys, the local police, and a tenacious reporter Christine (Michelle Ferre) who may be more than she seems.

Those capped teeth!

There are several good set pieces, including one with Chan's hands handcuffed behind him, and a neat stunt where Chan escapes a tall building by winding himself in a rope and unwinding like a yo-yo on the way down.

The best action sequence involves Chan, Christine, and Yuki in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IV chased by three BMW 3-series. Chan is handcuffed in front, and Yuki's left hand is handcuffed to the "oh shit" handle above the (right-side) driver's seat. I'm always looking for stuff I've never seen in a movie before? Yuki squeezes the car through a tight alley on it's side, but when it emerges, it doesn't flop back onto all four wheels. Yuki manages to spin the car around on it's side until she has enough momentum to turn the wheels and force it to flop down. Speaking of inventive, the final boss fight is on the roof of an office building in Rotterdam. Two boss fighters take turns fighting with Chan, like it's a game to them. When Chan successfully fights Boss 1 by grabbing his necktie, Boss 2 takes his own off in preparation for his turn - that's funny.

Maybe the best "driving while handcuffed"
chase I've ever seen.

There are several shots on the edge of the roof where Chan appears to nearly fall, and I cannot see the safety lines. It looks great. The fight ends with Chan sliding down an enormous diagonal glass roof, seemingly impossible to survive, and he makes it okay. 

This is all well and good, but I found the bad parts overwhelming. Some of this is not new to this Chan movie: Chan is a competent actor. The entire rest of the cast are awful: the CIA officers, the corrupt US military officers, the Namibia Police - terrible terrible acting. I will say this - Chan casts such peculiar-looking actors, there's no mistaking who is who.

An American gangster is played by a guy who sounds like he's faking an American tough-guy accent, with a cartoonish zoot suit, big fedora, and smoking a stogie. In 1998. It's embarrassing! The two female leads are both making the movie debut, and ironically, they offer the best performances in it.

One last point: the MacGuffin is a chunk of meteorite with limitless energy inside. The CGI they use to animate it is awful, even by 1998 standards.

Jackie Chan seems to put all his energy into innovative action sequences, and for that I thank him. If he thinks the performances of his cast are good enough for a movie with so much kicking and punching, I wish he'd try harder. My Stub Hubby Grade - C-plus

A rogue's gallery of odd-looking actors! That guy in the top-center is supposed to be
a CIA Director - why is he wearing ladies' eyeglasses that clearly don't fit him?