DAY 26: Jackie Chan!

Rumble in the Bronx blew the doors wide open for Jackie Chan in America. So, naturally, the very next thing the multiplexes threw at us was 1995’s Thunderbolt (released in some regions as Dead Heat). New Line Cinema wanted to strike while the iron was hot. Still, instead of another neighborhood street-brawl comedy, we got something completely different: a hyper-kinetic, multilingual, multi-million-dollar collision of Euro-sleaze villains, legal and illegal street racing, yakuza pachinko hall beatdowns and corporate Mitsubishi product placement.

By 1995, the Hong Kong film industry was facing a serious slump, but Jackie Chan was a one-man economic stimulus package. Thunderbolt was a massive, high-budget gamble that cost nearly 30 million Hong Kong dollars, and it shows. Director Gordon Chan decided to completely eschew the traditional period-piece martial arts aesthetic in favor of a slick, modern racing blockbuster.

The movie plays like a proto-Fast & Furious, but dialed up to an eleven on the psychological instability meter. Jackie plays Foh (or Alfred if you watched the American dub), a brilliant junkyard mechanic and part-time racecar driver who helps the Hong Kong police bust illegal drag racers.

The problem? He crosses paths with Cougar Krugman (Thorsten Nickel), an international criminal driver who looks like an elite henchman from a lost Cannon Films production. Cougar isn’t just a bad guy; he’s a psychopath who drives a black Nissan Skyline GT-R R32 like an absolute demon.

What makes Thunderbolt such a fascinating watch for a B-movie maniac is its absolute refusal to settle on a single tone. It jumps from lighthearted romantic comedy to pitch-black exploitation violence at the drop of a hat.

One minute, Jackie is being cutely harassed by a reporter named Amy Yip (Anita Yuen), and the next, Cougar’s gang is staging a literal terrorist raid on a police station to spring him from jail. People are being gunned down left and right, blood is flying, and Interpol agent Steve Cannon (Michael Wong) ends up shooting Cougar’s girlfriend to death mid-escape. To get revenge, Cougar uses a giant crane to systematically smash Jackie’s junkyard into scrap metal, brutally crushes his father and kidnaps his two younger sisters.

His demand? “Come to Japan and race me.”

Because this is a Jackie Chan movie, we can’t just have racing. When Foh lands in Japan, he storms a Yakuza-owned pachinko parlor to rescue his sisters. This sequence is a masterclass in chaotic action choreography, handled by the legendary Sammo Hung and the Jackie Chan Stunt Team. Pachinko balls are flying everywhere, bodies are being thrown through neon glass, and Jackie is wielding chairs like a man possessed. It’s glorious.

Remember how Jackie broke his ankle on the hovercraft in Rumble in the Bronx? Well, his foot still hadn’t healed when they shot Thunderbolt. Because he couldn’t perform his signature high-flying kicks, a massive chunk of the martial arts action in the pachinko hall actually used stunt doubles—specifically Chin Kar-lok and Sammo Hung’s own stunt team—hidden by hyper-fast editing and clever camera angles. The Golden Horse Film Festival still handed it the award for Best Action Choreography.

The final third of the movie takes us to the Sendai Hi-Land Raceway in Japan. After Foh’s initial yellow Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution III gets totaled, the daughter of a Mitsubishi executive (because why not?) just hands him two brand-new white Mitsubishi GTO race cars.

Soon, cars are flipping over, exploding, and spinning out in a high-speed parade of practical effects and miniature work. The finale features a photo finish in which both cars slide backward out of control into a gravel pit, and Jackie wins by literally shifting into reverse and flooring it across the finish line.

Of course, Cougar tries to run away after losing, leading to a violent, fiery crash where Jackie has to pull him from the burning wreckage just so the cops can lock him up.

Thunderbolt is a beautiful mess. It’s got a villain straight out of a Euro-trash actioner, incredible real-car destruction and some of the most bizarre tonal shifts you’ll ever see in a major studio release.

The Arrow Video release of this film has the uncut 110-minute international version and a 97-minute Japanese cut. There’s commentary by martial arts cinema experts Frank Djeng and F.J. DeSanto; Breakout! Part 3, a new featurette in which stuntman Mars, critics David West and James Mudge and dubbing supervisor Paul Clay look back at the film; an expanded interview with Clay on his collaborations with Jackie Chan; alternate English export credits; outtakes; an international trailer; Japanese trailers; and an image gallery. You can get it from MVD.