Who Am I? (1998)
"Ngo si seoi" (original title)

*** out of ****

Despite boasting one of the silliest non-horror titles I've heard, Who Am I? is one of Jackie Chan's best movies. No, seriously. This straight-to-cable release deserved a better fate than it received, for it's really a funny, exciting popcorn martial arts action flick that's truer to the Jackie Chan we all know and love than most of his other recent theatrically released films (The Shanghai series, the Rush Hour flicks, The Tuxedo, and The Medallion). There's no wise-cracking, smart-mouthed partner, and even better, no magical powers and/or costumes that require the extensive use of wirework. Who Am I? is old-fashioned Chan with a slicker look and higher production values.

The plot's more of the same usual nonsense, but with a slightly more paranoid edge. Chan stars as a secret agent who loses his memory after falling from a helicopter. He's adopted by an African tribe who dubs him WhoamI, because those are the first words he says. After learning their culture and language, he eventually leaves to discover his real identity and his past. But what do you know, just as soon as he's reached a city, everybody's looking to kill him and he's stuck with an annoying reporter (Michelle Ferre) who isn't all that she says she is.

Who Am I? boasts the usual flaws of a Jackie Chan flick. The plot's inconsequential, the acting's atrocious, and the dialogue is painful to listen to. Jackie even delivers a `violence and greed is bad' speech to the villains; word of advice, Jackie: if you're going to deliver such a goofy-sounding (and somewhat naïve) statement, you should make certain you've got the strong plot to back it up in the first place. The only thing that generally separates the quality of Chan's Hong Kong work is the quantity and quality of the action and humor. In this case, the first half is admittedly somewhat slow, but peppered with a few genuinely funny, if not also rather silly, moments that keeps the film from bogging down.

I could have done entirely without Michelle Ferre, whose awful performance ranks as one of the worst I've ever seen. Not only is she unconvincing as a journalist, but the movie goes on to reveal that she's actually a CIA agent! Her presence does little more than hinder Jackie's usual charms and provides the plot with a deus ex machine resolution.

But the rest of the stuff is mostly bearable enough to get into the action. There are three major fight scenes, the early one with Jackie handcuffed behind his back is pretty nifty, but also a tad short. The battle in the city streets is innovative and there's a wild car chase, too. But the entire selling point of the picture is its climactic ten-minute two-on-one martial arts battle, which is elaborate, thrilling, and quite cleverly humorous. This is probably the best pure fight scene I've seen in any of Jackie Chan's films and goes a long way in making some of the earlier flaws forgivable.