KUNG FU ROOKIE -- Jackie Chan Homage Captures Classic Spirit

Review by Daniel Lima

Jackie Chan is one of the most recognizable movie stars on the planet, perhaps the single most recognizable martial arts star. Kung Fu Rookie is a testament to his international appeal: an independently produced love letter to the man’s films, from the nation of Kazakhstan. That it is so indebted to his work creates a low ceiling for what this can achieve, but the studious attentiveness to what made his classic oeuvre so enchanting also gives this a high floor.

By all appearances, this film is a passion project of star, producer and editor Timur Baktybayev. He plays a young man who moves from the countryside to Almaty, the largest city in the nation, in order to join the police force. Along the way, he reunites with his good-natured uncle, gets a love interest, runs afoul of a local gang of thugs, and gets into some wild fights.

It’s practically impossible to talk about Kung Fu Rookie entirely on its own merits, as its constant references to Jackie Chan’s filmography — particularly his 1990’s films, when he really broke out on the international scene — seem to encourage those comparisons. The plot is a broad strokes rendition of Rumble in the Bronx; Baktybayev is clearly playing a take on Chan’s own screen persona, down to the wardrobe; all of the fights are pulled from his films, in setting and in choreography. Specific beats and gags from the action are present, and I am certain other bits outside the fight scenes simply went over my head.

All of this is in good fun, but when the sole intent of art is to retread other art, there’s an enforced limit to how impressive it can be. Chan’s films existed at a particular time and place that allowed them to take the form they did. Hong Kong had a long history of action cinema, and productions were given ample time and budget to deliver set pieces; there was a large number of talented martial artists and stuntmen looking for work; Jackie Chan was an icon who people were willing to risk injury for. None of these things are true of a low budget independent film from Kazakhstan, and so it could never hope to achieve these heights.

In spite of this, Baktybayev and director Aman Ergaziyev work with what they have. Where much of Chan’s comedic work is big and broad, this film plays like a lowkey, low stakes romantic comedy: making breakfast with uncle, studying with the cute girl, helping the nice lady with her groceries. No performances stand out, but they are all charming, sweet, and easy to root for. The villains receive far less definition, but as with the films that inspired this, that’s less important than if they can be convincingly threatening in a fight. It certainly helps that this is leaner than most Hong Kong comedies, barely over an hour before credits. I can certainly think of plenty of small action films that could have benefited from such a streamlined narrative.

None of this is to say the set pieces are bad. While it’s clear that Baktybayev and the team he’s assembled don’t approach the level of on-screen athleticism of Jackie and his stunt team in their prime, they all clearly have at least some training (two of the villains are played by pro MMA fighters). It’s also clear from the blooper reel that ends the film, another Jackie staple that they were all willing to risk injury and take the time to nail their beats exactly; no surprise that the star himself chose to do the editing.

The fights themselves, while necessarily pared down and simplified from what they reference, still follow the same principles that made them so electric: incorporating the environment into the action, constantly keeping the hero on the back foot and forcing to overcome incredible odds, peppering in comedy without dialing down the intensity of the movement. There’s even a handful of laudable original flourishes, the highlight being a fight on a merry-go-round. One can only imagine what could have been achieved if they were untethered to the source material.

As derivative as Kung Fu Rookie may be, it is the best kind of loving homage. Beyond the appreciation for, and intimate understanding of, all that made Jackie Chan so special to so many, this is also clearly the work of someone who has internalized all of what they’ve learned. As I understand it, Kazakstan does not have a particularly robust film industry and that is a shame. The world could use some more of Timur Baktybayev.

Kung Fu Rookie is now available on digital.

Rating: 3.5/5