My Review of "Thunderbolt (1995)"

Thunderbolt (1995) is a Jackie Chan movie that melds fighting along with race car driving. I know what you're thinking, yes, it does sound like a really weird combination. You also have to consider the time that it was created. The mid 90s was a very different time and this movie is very much a product of its time.

The movie starts off with the introduction to our main protagonist, Foh. At times he's even referred to as Jackie which is really funny because he's played by Jackie Chan. It introduces us to his upbringing in racing cars. He's in school to learn all of the techniques and what goes into the cars in Japan.

This movie's timeline is all screwed up so I assume a few years pass by and he opens up a garage in Hong Kong. We then get introduced to the big bad guy named Cougar. He's basically a free-spirited rich guy that wants to race the best of the best. In his pursuit of finding the best racer in the world he races the streets at obscene speeds.

They don't really explain it but Foh is somehow very well connected to the police and he tries to help them out. In turn they help him out whenever they can. Cougar is causing a lot of trouble with the police by racing recklessly in the busy streets of Hong Kong. Foh decides to help out by racing and capturing this criminal.

Since Cougar is rich and well connected he somehow springs himself out of prison and kidnaps Foh's two younger sisters and holds them ransom unless Foh races him at some international race in Japan. Yeah I know it's very random and very much nonsense. You'll experience this feeling a lot throughout this movie.

There are random interactions that will start up fights with Foh and Cougar's cronies throughout the movie. Although these scenes are quite heavy handed you really have to respect the fight choreography involved with this movie. It's top notch and very fun to watch. The camera angles and the creative things that they do in this movie are quite impressive.

One thing that I didn't like is the slow shutter recording scenes. I thought they looked like a mess but I understand what they're going for with these scenes. These movies are very low budget so they probably didn't have high speed cameras to shoot slow motion. This is probably the best alternative for them. It does give off a dreamy feeling but for fight scenes it can get very disorienting. Maybe that's what they were going for as well.

Oddly enough the worse thing about this movie is the car racing scene at the end of the movie. The chase scenes in the middle of the movie are pretty well done but at the end they felt like they went on forever. Some of the things they do with the cars look quite cartoon like and very weird as they added a lot of fast forward motion to a lot of the footage. I thought it was funny at the end credits they apologize for all the racers that were injured throughout the filming. There was a lot of accidents too.

I did appreciate the fact that all of the stuff done in this movie were done with real cars and people. It's kind of very odd seeing this nowadays. At times it looks like a high school project but at other times it's a work of genius. Some of the car scenes made me think this movie is what the Fast and the Furious franchise would do if they didn't have the CGI or the big budget they have.

Overall, what matters is if the movie was entertaining. There were moments of great entertainment but they were probably 3 moments throughout the 2 hour runtime. This movie dragged especially closer to the end of the movie. The relationships in this movie are non-existent and the story is pitiful. They really relied on the stunt work throughout the movie to make this relevant. Unfortunately for me that's not what cuts it. I have to give this movie a 4 out of 10. I don't recommend this for anyone, even if you are a fan of 90s Japanese import race cars.