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When action star Jackie Chan visits a zoo to open their brand-new panda exhibit, he soon finds himself embroiled in a plot to take a baby panda.
Written by Wei Xu, Meng Yida, and Luan Zhang, and directed by Zhang, Panda Plan is a serviceable action comedy designed for its star, to let him shine and do his thing, going through stunts and fights like some go through lines of dialogue. The story here is thin with a ton of random things thrown in for cinematic value. We get a baby panda, a cute girl, some dumb criminals, an international plot to pandanap the poor baby, and a happy resolution to it all. Basically, the plot here, while having plenty of twists and turns, is ultimately incredibly predictable. A giant blow up panda? No way they use it to jump on, right, well… You probably can guess that stunt and how it goes. The film is silly and predictable with an easy to see coming ending that makes everything all better, but it’s ok. While not the most entertaining film for adults, this is family action comedy, so it pretty much is for younger audiences.
Of course, the cast must be looked at here. Jackie Chan plays Jackie Chan and the whole film is designed around his skills and his newfound family-film-guy status as he ages. He gives a decent acting performance and fans of his should love his action scenes. He’s fairly funny still, a bit self-deprecating, and willing to look ridiculous for the sake of the stunt at times. He’s pretty much exactly what one expects of an aging action-comedy star. Joining him as the pretty zoo employee who is starstruck at first then happy someone who can help is on the premises is Ce Shi as Su Xiaozhu who is charming in her parts. The rest of the cast here is mostly bumbling zoo employees and bumbling-er bad guys with a variety of international actors in some of the parts, all of whom are ok, but nothing to write home about.
The cinematography by Daxin Dong is glossy and pretty, very much giving kids’ movie energy, filled with colors and movements, but allowing you to see most of what is going. One of these going-ons is the fight choreography directed by Shijia Lü gets a bit muddy in parts with camera work that seems to be wanting to hide something. Or be more modern in a “heavy editing and movement” sort of way. It’s not entirely terrible, but the fights are not super easy to see at times and it does lose the film some points.
Overall, Panda Plan is a film that should play better to younger audiences just getting their toes into the action-comedy pool than for audiences of folks who watch a tone of it and spot a stuntman from a mile. The film is entertaining, it has funny moments, and it basically woks. It’s predictable but it’s not terrible.