The sight of a Jackie Chan lookalike bantering with the Chinese superstar’s real-life son Jaycee Chan is one of the few pleasures to be had in watching this dim-witted chop-socky comedy.
Co-directors Francis Ng and Marco Mak have crafted several well choreographed action sequences, but not enough derring-do to satisfy traditional kung-fu fans, while the mood is often manic and the humour is low-brow and silly.
Nominally set during the Ming Dynasty, Tracing Shadow’s thin excuse for a plot follows numerous attempts to find a map supposedly pinpointing the location of the Emperor’s buried treasure. The dialogue, however, is modern and colloquial: 'Who is this piece of shit interrupting my party?""¦. 'So, your place or mine?""¦. 'Bugger off!"
Ng plays Chang, a Mongolian swordsman who’s defeated by Manchurian warrior Na-Lan and relinquishes his title of Supreme Master of Martial Arts. He rescues ninja Xin (Pace Wu) after she steals the map and is pursued by three bandits across the rooftops of Beijing, but amid the chaos the map goes missing. Five years later Chang and his wife Xin are running a restaurant in a village with their petulant adopted daughter Xiaowei (Xie Na).
Xin is still intent on finding that treasure, as are the three thieves played by ring-ins for Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Andy Lau, whose inspiration might also have been the Three Stooges. The Chan doppelganger, a clothing designer named Jackie Tang, has an amusing exchange with the local landowner, Lord Xu (Jaycee Chan), who lusts after the high-spirited Xiaowei.
The town’s hapless mayor, Gu, has the hots for Xin but neither romance goes anywhere. The hunt for the treasure goes deep into underground caverns, a la a poor man’s Indiana Jones, while battles rage above ground. The fight sequences blending wirework and CGI are the film’s best asset but the acting is hammy and there’s zero chemistry between Ng and Pace Wu.
