Ostensibly, Railroad Tigers is a film about the Chinese resistance during the Sino-Japanese War. But it stars Jackie Chan, albeit not up to his usual level of high-flying stunts in his older age. The result is a patriotic suicide mission delivered as slapstick. It doesn’t work. In addition to the tonal dissonance, director Ding Sheng’s epic is structured around elaborate fighting sequences on trains, whose use of green screen is immensely distracting. There’s little in those action sequences to help develop character, and the players in this loosely comprehensible plot keep piling up, with random, inconsequential characters given introductory title cards complete with nicknames and catchphrases. Needless to say, the dramatic finale rings hollow.
Our wily band of unlikely heroes, known as the Railroad Tigers, is led by Ma Yuan (Jackie Chan) and is constantly referred to as “hicks” by Captain Yamaguchi (Hiroyuki Ikeuchi), the caricaturish villain of the piece. They regularly hijack Japanese trains to steal army supplies. But the group’s measly attempts to hinder the Japanese catch a break when they find an injured soldier who tells them about plans to blow up a large bridge used to move Japanese supplies. Now, Ma Yuan and his followers have a proper mission that, if achieved, would make a big impact on the war. It is also, very likely, a suicide mission.
It’s clear that Railroad Tigers was perhaps intended for a younger audience, especially given the frame of the entire film. A young boy visiting a museum sees the Tigers’ symbol on the side of a train, and his father’s story of the infamous Tigers fades into the two-hour film. But from the cartoonish opening credits to the animated character cards, Tigers plays as if it’s light entertainment. This becomes all the more disturbing when paired with the film’s war story, as evidenced by the shockingly awful special effects used to convey the deaths of the bulk of the characters at the end. As the bridge falls, their heads are literally seen projected onto CGI explosions. At that point, Tigers fails to be an appropriate contribution to kid’s entertainment or historical/action film.
On top of these cartoonish elements, Tigers also is divided into scenes hokily introduced by more animated title cards. Thus, sequences where Ma Yuan and company rob a train or trick a Japanese regiment have no real tension or suspense. If something bad were going to happen, Sheng would likely have labelled the scene accordingly. Not only does this prevent the viewer from developing a connection with the characters enough to worry about them, but it places obvious dividing lines between scenes and interrupts whatever narrative flow Sheng may have been able to muster. The result is that, for an action film, Tigers creeps along, the action sequences so numerous as to become dulling.
As a historical comedy, Tigers doesn’t come anywhere near genuine humor or narrative cohesion. Even though the story itself has plenty to offer, Sheng appears to have latched onto train robberies and been unable to take the story further. There are glimpses of how the Chinese live under Japanese control, but those scenes are few and far between, not to mention riddled with incongruous slapstick. Perhaps Tigers could have worked if the fate of its protagonists weren’t so dire. As it is, though, the film tries and fails to make light of occupation, rebellion and sacrifice.
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