ong Kong cop Eddie Yang (Chan) is teamed with an Interpol squad led by martinet agent Arthur Watson (Evans) as they pursue the international criminal known only as Snakehead (Sands). Watson and his team leave Yang outside when they track Snakehead to a Buddhist temple.
But while Watson bumbles around, Yang notices a brilliant light through a sewer grate in the street. He drops down and creeps up on Snakehead's thugs. A fight ensues, and Yang fends off his opponents. Entering an inner chamber, Yang sees Snakehead attempting to grab something from a young boy: a medallion. But before Yang can arrest Snakehead, the mastermind upends a torch, setting the place on fire. Faced with a choice of pursuing the criminal or saving the boy, Yang gathers the youth up.
Watson is furious that Yang has allowed Snakehead to escape. But Yang is now one of the only people who can identify the criminal.
Later, Snakehead's men manage to grab the boy and spirit him to an awaiting cargo ship, bound for Ireland. Yang follows, landing in Dublin.
At Interpol headquarters there, he is surprised to find himself teamed with raven-haired agent Nicole James (Forlani), who slaps Yang for not calling her as he promised. But their reunion is otherwise harmonious, and they team up with Watson to find Snakehead and the boy.
On another ship, Yang discovers the boy in the custody of Snakehead's men. Trapped in a cargo container as it sinks into the sea, Yang improvises an ingenious way to save the boy's life, but at the cost of his own. But the medallion comes into play, endowing Yang with otherworldly gifts. That makes him a target for Snakehead as much as the boy.
Everybody was kung-fu fighting—but why?
The Medallion (formerly titled Highbinders, alluding to a Chinese myth) is the latest in a series of misbegotten Jackie Chan projects that attempt to mix Chan's martial-arts mojo and trademark charm with Hollywood visual effects and style. While not as irritating as last year's The Tuxedo, The Medallion is nonetheless subpar Chan, though it shows a bit of style, lots of flashy action and a few original effects sequences.
The film is an odd mix of James Bond, The Golden Child and any of Chan's Hong Kong cop movies. The tone of the film meanders from urban crime drama to high-tech spy thriller to farce to supernatural adventure, and none of it very successfully. And there's the weird things. What's the deal with Watson's wife, who suddenly reveals herself to be a potent warrior? It's never explained. And why does Eddie's hair go from long to short all of a sudden?
The movie is strongest when it hews closely to the Hong Kong setting and energetic action style that recall Chan's best efforts. It is weakest when it attempts humor or romance. Directed by Hong Kong filmmaker Gordon Chan, but scripted by a mixed bag of writers, the movie has a lot of jokes that fall flat or induce grimaces. A lot gets lost in translation, one suspects.
Evans' character, Watson, is particularly grating, a kind of stiff-upper-lip Jerry Lewis, and Watson functions mainly as the vehicle for inelegant slapstick.
Forlani (Mystery Men) grins like an idiot most of the time and shows zero chemistry with Chan, though the audience is led to believe there is some romantic history. When the two clinch in the final frame, it looks like two strangers mashing their lips together. The comely actress manages a few convincing kung-fu moves, though, and does approach a level of pathos when expressing her grief to young Jai (Alexander Bao). Sands and Rhys-Davies have very little screen time and appear to sweat a lot.
