by Jacob Walker
As Jackie Chan reaches his 69th birthday, what else is left to explore in over six decades of filmmaking, apart from the relationship between a man and a horse. The resulting film is more of a homage to stunt work and Jackie’s career. It’s not a disaster but rather a forgettable anomaly.
Jackie plays Lao Luo, a washed-up stunt performer who lives on a studio lot with his horse, Red Hare. Lao is stuck performing for tourists before a fight with some debt collectors, led by Andy On, goes viral. As a result, he’s offered stunt work alongside his trusty steed. Some generic suits are trying to reclaim Red Hare, so he asks his estranged daughter and law student (Liu Haocun) to help him with the case alongside her newly qualified boyfriend (Guo Qilin).
The film parallels Chan’s own life, a stuntman who refuses to retire, an offspring he can’t connect with, and constant callbacks to his own career (too many to name here). These are fun for the fans, but it feels like they are in the wrong film; a clear swansong would have been more satisfying. We do get a trio of fights between Lao and the debt collectors, which are well performed as always, even though 90% of Chan’s movements are performed by a stuntman.
The film’s strongest aspect is Jackie’s performance – he cries a lot, firstly over his daughter and then his horse. It reminds you of his emotional range, last seen affectively in The Foreigner. If anything, Ride On is a harmless curiosity; in a few years’ time, your friend will say – ‘do you remember that strange film about Jackie and a horse?’ and you will reply, ‘no’.
