Shanghai Noon 2000, Rated PG-13 Buena Vista Home Entertainment

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Starring Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, et al. Released to DVD on October 10, 2000.

Back when I was in fifth grade, I can remember watching dozens of supposed history videos or filmstrips that portrayed each demographic group in American history in a most shallow, one-dimensional fashion. If the cowboys weren't in a gun battle with outlaws, they were in a saloon drinking. The Native Americans, if not hunting, were in their tepees smoking peace pipes and drinking firewater and so forth. These portrayals were, obviously, quite flawed and stereotypical, but from a research standpoint, often afforded the filmmakers a very easy way out. In director Tom Dey's horrendously awful film Shanghai Noon, the characterizations of all the leads were drawn completely from those movies I saw in fifth grade. Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson are almost totally wasted in this convoluted tale of a Chinese princess who is kidnapped and brought to the western United States in the late 19th century. This was nearly Almost Heroes.