As his advancing years have robbed his body of some of its elasticity, Jackie Chan has necessarily put behind him the bonkers, stunt-infused, heroic pieces like Project A, Wheels on Meals, Operation Condor, Armour of God and the Police Story franchise that characterised his work in the 1980’s and early 90’s. Lately, he’s alternated kiddie-friendly fare such as The Medallion, The Spy Next Door and Kung Fu Panda with comedy outings like Rush Hour, Shanghai Noon and Around the World in 80 Days.
Now, Chan seems to be trying his hand at something different again, with the epic-looking 1911. It is hard to glean too much from this first teaser trailer, however Chan looks altogether serious and given that it looks to have all the trappings of a full-blown propaganda piece about the 1911 Chinese Revolution, that comes as no surprise. The release date is scheduled to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the uprising of Sun Yat Sen’s forces against the Qing Dynasty, so expect this to be played straight as a die.
Enjoy the trailer below and as always, we’ll bring you more as we get it.
UPDATE: Kenji has just provided us with a tranlation of the trailer courtesy of his mum:
It’s not a 100% direct translation, just roughly what the idea of the things are, so Dave’s free to re-word however he wants:
- [00:01 opening text] The film will be shown globally at the same time. (Though, since it’s actually being released at different times in different countries, that might not be quite accurate on the trailer’s part, so may be better just to leave out.)
- [00:06 text] Jackie Chan, His 100th film anniversary
- [00:09 speech] This is evidence of the lives of the unknown, brave people who lost their lives in the turbulent history during the last emperor’s age/time/reign.
- [00:20 text] 1911/10/10 – Xinhai Revolution
- [00:22 text] What did they believe?
- [00:25 text] What did they seek?
- [00:27 text] What did they give up/sacrifice?
- [00:33 speech] 1911
- [00:43 speech, reading out the text] The story of the “lives” which were bit reported in/by history…
- [00:48 text] This film is presenting their story to the world, a century on.
- [00:50 text] 5th November (The Japanese release date; I think IMDB must have it wrong), (and then it says something about a ‘national grand roadshow’, but my mum and I weren’t really sure what that meant! If the film’s doing a Kevin Smith/Red State-type thing, I don’t really know.)
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdX3FGdEshA&feature=player_embedded#at=32′]
Source: Bleeding Cool.
