WHO AM I? (1998)

Starring: Jackie Chan

I was lucky to catch Who Am I? At the cinemas when I travelled to Hong Kong in 1998. It was the Chinese New Year, and Jackie always releases a film at this festival. Other films on show were Stephen Chow’s The Lucky Guy and Ekin Cheng’s Young and Dangerous IV, which all proved to be unsuccessful and sank at the box-office due to the colossal might of James Cameron’s Titanic.

Who Am I? was a film I was looking forward to seeing, especially after the lacklustre affair that was Mr Nice Guy. This film promises much and my expectations were high. There were two versions of this film when it showed in Hong Kong: a local and international version. I discovered later that there were little differences between the two, only that Jackie speaks in Cantonese in some scenes rather than in English.

The film opens in Africa where a very rare raw material has been discovered. Jackie is one of the special squad team sent in to capture a bunch of scientists who could use their knowledge to utilise this raw material. However, Jackie and his team are betrayed by their superiors, and everyone dies except Jackie, who falls out of the helicopter and into the wild forestland. He wakes up in a local African tribal village with amnesia. When asked his name, he says bewilderingly “Who Am I?”, and the locals mistakenly thinks that is his name. For the rest of the film, Jackie’s mission is to discover his own identity, which leads him to Rotterdam, where he confronts the bad guys whole stole his identity.

I liked this film, although it could have been much better. The film has similarities with Once Upon a Time in China and America: both Jackie and Wong Fei Hung were rescued by a tribe, and both suffer from amnesia. Who Am I? also suffers from the same infliction that plagued Once 6, and it is the short time that they stay at the tribes, because I thought these scenes were more fun and appealing than when they race off to discover their identities.

There are some great fight scenes, and one good car chase through a busy city centre. The highlight of the film has to be the ending when Jackie faces off two fighters on the roof of high rise building. Although no classic, it is very entertaining.

RATING

7 / 10