Watching a terrible Jackie Chan movie
Man, i love cinema. Not just the movie theater experience, but cinema as a form of art. Even living in a place where making a movie is harder than buying weed, i always daydreamed about writing my own movies, and it’s not rare to see myself typing random, never-published stories on my computer. I have a whole post about one of them i pretend to release later, but this is not the topic rn. The topic is:
when you watch a lot of movies, you are gonna stumble on some bad ones.
This is inevitable. There is no way you can always choose good movies to watch. And sometimes you watch some you already know will be bad. I’m not a psychiatrist, but I’m pretty sure science has an explanation for this.
What makes a movie good?
Good acting? Great editing? A well written screenplay? When I saw Jackie Chan and a CGI panda, i had 100% sure this movie would not have any of these elements, but i clicked on play anyway.
I grew up watching Jackie Chan movies: Rush Hour, Rob-B-Hood, The Tuxedo, the masterpiece The Foreigner, and some time ago Ride On, a movie where he plays a stunt double in a weird alternative version of himself who doesn’t get the success he has in the real world.
Ride On was odd. The humor and editing were not something i’m used to. I can’t review the movie as a Chinese person, but i liked it. It’s a cool experience and an honest homage to stunt double work, so why not give a chance to Panda Plan?
What I’ve done
Oh my God, something was VERY odd. Not Jackie playing a cinematic version of himself, or the weird editing, or the way they hold the CGI panda, or even the terrible acting from the bad guys, but the lack of sound effects or a proper soundtrack, to a point where i asked myself if my movie version had some audio track issues or something like that.
I’m not gonna lie, Panda Plan was a bad choice for the first movie of 2026, but it still got me a laugh or two. Even with the low budget, they did their story, they made a cute panda cub, and they told the story they wanted to tell.
Maybe that’s the point of watching movies like Panda Plan. Not every film needs to be good to justify its existence. Some of them exist just because someone wanted to tell a story, even if the tools, the budget, or the execution weren’t enough. And sometimes, being there for that attempt is part of loving cinema.
It’s still good seeing Jackie acting again. We never really know when he’s going to retire, and one day, even the bad movies will turn into something we miss.
Go watch some movies cowboy.