Director: Larry Yang
Script: Larry Yang
Cast: Jackie Chan, Zifeng Zhang, Tony Ka Fai Leung, Ci Sha, Wen Junhui, ZiYi Wang, Lu Cai
Running time: 142 minutes
Year: 2025
Certificate: Not rated, but probably a strong 15
My expectation for this latest Jackie Chan film wasn’t too high since many of his more recent films have been ‘under-par’. Probably his strongest film in recent memory was The Foreigner, with Pierce Brosnon. However, The Shadow’s Edge, which is a reimagining of 2007’s Eye in the Sky really delivers on the high octane action, finally delivering on Jackie Chan Vs the equally legendary Tony Leung (who also appeared in Eye in the Sky).
After a small, well-organised gang of armed robbers rob a large corporate entity and embarrasses the Macau Police, by literally disappearing in an invisible car, the police decide enough is enough and bring back retired tracking expert, Wong Tak (Jackie Chan), to help catch the dangerous group of professional thieves. A newish recruit, He Qiuguo (Zifeng Zhang), who happens to be the daughter of a previous – now dead – partner of Wong’s, is mentored by Wong, since he sees great potential in her, despite the rest of the, mostly male, team having reservations.
The majority of the film sees the cops using all sorts of surveillance techniques to try and locate the gang, in particular the Fagan-like gang mentor, Fu Longsheng, played with much gravitas by the very charismatic Leung. However, some of the best scenes are the quieter ones involving Wong and He deep undercover, getting acquainted with Fu; bringing to mind DeNiro’s and Al Pacino’s lunch meeting in Michael Mann’s Heat.
The supporting cast are also decent, with an excellent performance by Zifeng Zhang, in particular, and the film is long enough – boy, is it long! – allowing for many of the supporting characters to all have their moments to shine.
The story is somewhat convoluted, but fairly easy to follow, with the usual double crosses and melodramatics enroute to the really gritty, brutal action and violence, in particular from Tony Leung’s side of things; just check out Leung taking on a bunch of mercenaries with a knife; definite shades of Oldboy there. In fact, the film is awash was classic fights and stunts and must have cost a fair chunk of money to make, judging by the locations used and general level of production value on display.
I guess my main criticism would be the length. At over 2.5 hours, it could have been trimmed down by a good 20 minutes, or so. The editing was annoying at times too, with overly aggressive zooms and too many quick cuts, probably to help disguise the fact that Jackie and Tony are getting slower in combat. Plus, the early ‘invisible car’ stunt, didn’t really make much sense since the cops could have been directed over to where the online cameras could still ‘see’ the car and touched it!
Typically, for a Jackie Chan film the credits show various onset gags with people getting injured or props failing them, which very clearly show both Chan and Leung doing many of their own stunts, as do the supporting cast, which is definitely appreciated. It made me smile seeing Chan making good use of a clothing rack, yet again, as a nod to his previous golden years.
Criticisms aside, The Shadow’s Edge is a very well made movie that reminds us that Jackie Chan is often overlooked when it comes to dramatic acting and it absolutely uses Tony Leung to his maximum potential.
I watched the film as an online screener, on a laptop, but I would heartily recommend viewers try to see it on the biggest screen available, should it get any sort of cinema release as I would imagine it will look fantastic up on the big screen.
Trinity CineAsia presents The Shadow’s Edge on Digital platforms 2nd February and on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray and standard Blu-ray from 16th February
