Movie Review - Railroad Tigers

SET in 1941, this story is about a ragtag team of railroad workers in China, led by Ma Yuan (Jackie Chan), who gave the occupying Japanese ­army a hard time during World War II.
The group are initially simple bandits who attack Japanese convoys, but they soon take on a bigger mission after meeting Da Guo (Darren Wang), the lone survivor of a platoon sent to blow up a nearby railroad bridge to cut off the Japanese army's ­supply line.
At its heart, the movie is a comically patriotic one, closely resembling the martial arts action movies back in Chan’s heydey, such as Wheels on Meals and Dragons Forever.
Each character of the main cast members is introduced comic-book style, complete with occupation and catchphrase, via animations that look like communist propaganda posters.
The first half of the movie ­establishes how preposterously ­ingenious, ­organised, and united the Railroad Tigers are, and in sharp contrast, how ludicrously ­incompetent the Japanese ­soldiers are.
It does not explain why the good guys are good, and why the bad guys are bad. It simply implies that everyone from one country is good, and the other, bad.
But based on the amount of ­destruction and high body count, you will think that the Railroad Tigers are the bad guys.
Unfortunately, the amount of thrills – the currency of action movies – are few and far between. It doesn’t help that every tense moment is defused with levity, hence cheapening it.
With no inkling of anything being on the line for either side, there is nothing to care about leaving the story hollow.
If this movie were to be ­released in the last century, I would have called it a ­propaganda movie, as it certainly looks and feels like one. It has elements of a martial art film, but you’d get more thrills from an acrobatic stage show.
Perhaps the storyline needed more rewrites.