Dragon Strike (Long xiao ye) (Dragon Lord) (Young Master in Love) (1982)

Admittedly different but not very exciting Jackie Chan entry, with the always-affable Chan finding himself with lots of unoffending martial arts action in an attempt to stop the theft of valuable ancient artifacts.

This movie is a perfect example of what would become symptomatic of every film Chan has made since 1982 while possessing control over the director's chair- overblown, drawn out, over budget, and sometimes uneven. Sure, Project A would redeem this a year later, but Dragon Lord is still a very flawed work. Jackie made this after the terrible Cannonball Run movies, and every shot is an attempt to redeem his manhood or something. He meticulously shoots things to the point of dulling their effect, overkills exposition with flat comedy, and loses its plot halfway through, essentially becoming a different movie. The public wasn't fooled, and this movie was a box office stinker upon release, Luckily, Chan knew that the way up was forward, not stuck in the period pieces of the kung fu genre, and bounced back with a vengeance the next year with Project A. On top of that, this is sort of like a semi-sports comedy than a kung fu movie (however, the ending is all action and one of the best set-pieces Chan has ever given cinema goers). It's nice, but not all that great either.