Jackie Chan turns into more of a showman with every Hollywood movie he makes and this fast paced sequel to Shanghai Noon is a case in point containing as it does a fantastic chop socky pastiche of Gene Kelly’s Umbrella dance from Singing in the Rain. Once again pairing with Owen Wilson as Roy O’Bannon Chan plays Chon Wang, now earning a crust as the wild west’s most unlikely sheriff in Carson City , Nevada . Roy has headed East to invest both his and Chan’s money (in reality this turns out to involve him spending it on hard liquor and fast women). When Chan gets the call to say that back in China’s Forbidden City the Emperor’s Seal has been stolen (and Wang’s father murdered in the process) the pair re-team to track the seal to London and attempt to get it back, also on its trail is Wang’s sister Chon (Fann Wong) who of course Roy instantly has the hots for. Throw in a bumbling Scotland Yard copper and such iconic Victorian figures as Jack the Ripper, Oliver Twist and Fagin, Queen Victoria and even a young Charlie Chaplin and you have a nicely entertaining ride.

Writers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (who were responsible for the original) have fashioned a definite fun time movie, full of humorous lines and exciting set pieces, witness the fight scene inside Big Ben. Chan is getting better all the time and is in his element her with some of the more choreographed fight routines and Owen Wilson is developing a nicely laconic sense of comic timing.

Full of nods to both movies (the Big Ben sequence is straight out of Harold Lloyd’s classic Safety Last) and popular culture, Shanghai Knights is actually that rare beast of a sequel being as good as the original.

EXTRAS: Various deleted scenes, Commentaries, a look behind the scenes at the action sequences and a fun fight manual.