The Western was a staple of American motion picture culture for very many years; in fact, the Western era in films probably lasted longer than the Western era in history. But even by the beginnings of my generation, the spatial and temporal geography of the West, though still important, had become delightfully vague. ⁽¹⁾ And by the late fifties, the genre had largely become self-parodying, particularly with the appearance of the TV series Maverick (particularly the episodes with James Garner as Bret Maverick), and it became very, very difficult to take Westerns seriously any longer. Today, the West has become primarily a setting for comedies, bearing very little resemblance to the real West of history; see e.g. the now almost classic Blazing Saddles, last year’s The Wild, Wild West and Bruce Campbell’s unfortunately short-lived TV series Brisco County, Jr., which shares some elements in common with Shanghai Noon, a film which, despite its punning title, has absolutely nothing to do with Shanghai…

In 1881 Qing princess Pei Pei (sic! and be sure to get the vowels right!), played by Lucy Alexis Liu, ⁽²⁾ unsatisfied with her prospective groom — who, she thinks, will probably continue to look very much like a toad even after he kisses her — allows her western tutor to convince her to flee with him to the United States. Alas! His bona fides are not completely in order; he is working for a renegade Imperial Guard, who runs a slave camp near Carson City, Nevada, where Chinese immigrants are impressed into (what else?) railway work, and together the two of them plan to hold the princess ransom for 100,000 pieces of gold. We are never informed whether this takes place before or after these enslaved workers discover the Orb (“Unearthed Foreign Object” or UFO) that played such an important role in Brisco County, Jr. …

The imperial government sends the money in the keeping of a five-man crew: the three most courageous Imperial Guards, the Imperial Interpreter to speak for them, and a fourth Imperial Guard, of somewhat lesser rank and competence but with the advantage of being the Interpreter’s nephew, to carry the luggage. This fifth person, Chon Weng, is played by Jackie Chan with his usual elan. His commission is accompanied by the pious hope, on the part of the Chinese government, that the yang guizi will get rid of him for them.

Things go wrong fairly quickly after arrival in America; the Interpreter is killed and Chon is separated from the other three during an abortive train robbery led by dashing, gallant bandit Roy O’Bannon (Owen Wilson). Chon sets out to cross mountains (which, from geological evidence, appear to be the Rockies!) to get to Carson City, but falls in with a tribe of local Indians after he rescues the chief’s young child (the subtitles in this part appear to be very loose translations indeed), and after a wild party involving a peace pipe containing interesting herbs and his rebaptism with an Indian name (meaning “He-Who-Fights-In-A-Dress”) he wakes up in the morning to find himself thoroughly married to the chief’s daughter, a young lady who appears only occasionally in the rest of the movie but whose timing is always impeccable. He meets up with Roy again, and the two become unwilling partners — unwilling, at least, until Roy finds out about the hundred thousand pieces of gold. The rest of the film involves, among other things, Chon learning to shoot, Roy learning to do Oriental superstuff a la Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, a psychotic marshal named van Cleef (homage to a former villain-actor in spaghetti westerns?), Chon’s transformation into a sidekick (with a higher price on his head than Roy!) called “the Shanghai Kid”, a battle in a Spanish mission that has somehow been transported to Nevada, a drinking game in a Carson City house of joy, and a useful way to bend the bars in a jail by using a wet silk robe (along with ways to wet a silk robe when you don’t have a carafe of water handy). The attentive viewer can learn much from this film. Oh, and there’s a fair amount of traditional kungfu thrash, bash and smash. Between the end of the story (which is happy for all concerned, except for those who were killed) and the credits there are a few minutes of amusing outtakes, as well.

It’s a fun film, though perhaps not as well researched as it might have been — but then who cares?

⁽²⁾ Ms. Liu is an up-and-coming star — she played the dominatrix Pearl in last year’s Payback, and will apparently have a major role in the new Charlie’s Angels movie, perhaps as a granddaughter of one of the original Angels — who would probably rather forget an appearance or two in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. I would not care to guess at her attitude towards her appearances as Ling Woo in Ally McBeal, a TV program I have had the good fortune to have (mostly) avoided.