Film Review: Who Am I (1998)

Good evening to all, hope all of you are doing well. Been a little while since I've pen down a film review. The last review I did was on I Not Stupid, a Singaporean film that depicts the education scene in Singapore, the struggles faced by parents and children. Today we look at another Chinese film, which I think is one of the better action films done by action superstar Jackie Chan.

The film that I am reviewing today is Who Am I, which was released in the year of 1998, this film can be considered an action-comedy, directed and starring by Jackie Chan. This movie features exhilirating stunts performed, death defying moments, martial arts with humour injected and also breathtaking cinematics of that era for capturing action scenes.

Plot
The film begin with a special mission conducted by a multinational special force team where Jackie Chan is part of it. The mission was to kidnap several scientist whom were working on a new energy source. But unfortunately, in the transport of the team and the kidnapped scientist, the helicopter was sabotaged and causing it to crash into an Africian jungle. Everyone were killed by the crash other than Jackie Chan whom was the sole survivor of the crash. While he surivived the crash, he had amnesia. He was discovered by an African tribesman and brought back to their village. With no recollection of his own identity and what had happened, Jackie just kept calling out "Who Am I" and the tribe ended up calling him as Who Am I.

After his recovery from the crash injury, he set out on a journey to find out who he actually is. While journeying out of the tribe, he bump into a man whom was bitten by a snake. Through his resourefulness, he managed to save the man and headed back to civilization through the man and his sister whom were actually out in the African savannah for a road race.

Due to Who Am I helping the siblings win the road race, he came into contact with a journalist and an undercover CIA agent of which both are actually investigating on the energy source case.

As Who Am I slowly recollects what had happened, he discovers that his former team leader, General Sherman was the one behind the sabotage and he seeks to sell the energy source information to the highest bidder. And Who Am I wants to expose this conspiracy and he got help from the journalist. From this on, it was all about Who Am I battling the villians and he manages to outsmart the villains, recover the stolen formula, and bring the villians to justice. Film ends with Who Am I discarding the formula and telling the journalist whom is a CIA agent, that he is doing the right thing.

Love and Hate of The Movie
Another amazing movie and let's look at the love and hate of it.

What I like

Nice plot which included memory loss and espionage for a deeper storyline to the movie than just pure fighting
Exceptional fight scenes which included many improvisation of environmental elements to make the scenes more natural and fun to watch.
Beautiful locations selected to shoot which included the savannah in Africa and also the Rotherdam which had the sky scrapper where Jackie Chan did the epic scene of sliding down that sky scrapper.
Many elements of humour were injected to this film and makes it less boring.

What I didn't like

Possibly a standard formula that follows in almost all Jackie Chan movie, but good thing that this has a little more dimension than his usual.

Lesson Learnt
This is a real good film that allowed us good lessons that can be picked up from it. Below I will share 2 things that I've learn from the film.

Resourcefulness and Ingenuity: In many of the fights and situation that happened to Who Am I, he never fail to adopt an out of the box thinking to solving the situation at hand. From coconut intravenous to using a hand bracelet to break glass and the various "weapons" he got out of his opponent's attire, this is a showcase of resourcefulness at its very best.
Moral Integrity: Despite his memory loss and the potential for exploiting his situation, Who Am I maintains his strong morals. By choosing to the right thing by misplacing the forumla, it prevented the formula from landing in the wrong hands. And this showcase the importance of moral intergrity and doing the right thing.

Verdict
A great film no matter how similar to many of Jackie Chan's movies. The stunts that were being attempted here was really outstanding. Cinematography and scenes shot in Africa and Rotherdam were just so nicely captured, bring strong constrast amongst the place. Consistent humour injection brings out a lighter side to an exciting action film.

Rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars

Thank you for your time in reading my review.

Posted using CineTV