RIDE ON - Mark Reviews Movies

Ride On, Well Go USA

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 6, 2023

About a decade ago, it was big news when Jackie Chan announced he would be cutting back on the number and extent of stunts he would be performing in movies. This was a man who became an international star because of his willingness to risk his life and endure all sorts of injuries in doing breathtakingly daring acts for the camera, and the question since then has been what kind of actor and performer would Chan become with that element of his career behind him.

Chan has proven himself to be a capable actor outside of fighting and performing stunts, and when he has taken on action roles with the limitations of what he would do, he's still capable of being charming and funny—maybe not quite enough so to distract us from how much Chan isn't doing when the action in those movies arrives. Writer/director Larry Yang takes advantage of Chan's persona, his past career, and the state of limbo the star's current work seems to be stuck in since cutting back on fights and stunts in Ride On. It's kind of surprising it took this long for someone to figure out that this is exactly the sort of role Chan has needed to play.

In this story, he's Lao Luo, a master stuntman of Hong Kong cinema who has fallen upon hard times—physically, emotionally, and financially. Now living in China, Luo barely makes ends meet in his spare day-to-day life by selling photos of himself and his only friend, a horse named Red Hare, to commuters outside a local movie studio. Whatever fame he might have had in his past life has moved on to his students—at least the ones who weren't severely injured. Whatever gigs he might have gotten now have dried up, too, because he's older and less dependable and sort of a joke.

The setup here is solid. Unfortunately, Yang has the tendency to focus on the gimmicky elements of this story, instead of the obvious strengths that are right there in front of the filmmaker.

Chan's casting as Luo, as well as his self-aware performance in the role, is the clearest point of the movie's potential. The actor isn't playing himself or even a disguised version of himself, of course, because he remains famous and in steady work despite his shifting priorities. Luo was never famous, missing out on a role that might have made him a star because he thought his student Yuanjie (Wu Jing) would be better (The pupil, now a celebrity, helps out his old master by providing autographed photos for Luo to sell). When Yuanjie spots Luo outside the studio, he decides to give his old teacher, not to mention Red Hare, a chance to perform some stunts for a movie that's currently in production.

Luo's arc, though, is fascinating in the ways it does parallel Chan's own career (Yang uses footage of stunts and outtakes of injuries from Chan's older movies to great effect here), and that aspect of this story is its most compelling and thoughtful. The basics of it are that Luo and Red Hare start receiving regular work, Luo keeps daring himself and his horse to do increasingly dangerous things, and, eventually, the stuntman has to decide between being a stubborn old man chasing after some former glory or realizing that his health, as well as the well-being of his trusty horse, is worth more than glory.

It's quite a shame, then, that Yang's screenplay seems far more interested in an assortment of subplots than the trials and evolution of its main character. The big one here is Luo's reunion with his estranged daughter Bao (Liu Haocun), whom he asks for help when a company comes looking to take custody of Red Hare in the aftermath of a lawsuit. Bao, who enlists the help of her lawyer boyfriend Mickey (Kevin Guo) to figure out that legal battle, becomes her father's conscience, as the two reconnect after a couple decades of him putting his career over family. The relationship, though, feels a bit disingenuous, especially since Luo seems to have more affection and concern for his horse than the daughter.

There are more storylines that get in the way, too, from the legal stuff, to Luo having to fight a group of gangsters to whom he's indebted, to Luo trying to bond with his daughter's boyfriend, and to all of the on-set contractual drama (There's a surreal quality, by the way, of watching Chan playing a stuntman on a movie set, even as we can notice when the actor needs his own stunt double to do some of the stunts his character is meant to be doing). Mostly, it's Luo's relationship with Red Hare that Yang really wants to develop, but the forced comedy and schmaltzy nature of that bond becomes a distraction.

There's a fine story at the center of Ride On—one that allows Chan to mirror and reflect upon his own career and his more recent choices regarding it. The movie, though, is bogged down by so much narrative business and gimmickry that the core story suffers.

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