Miracles

Jackie Chan has been compared with Buster Keaton, but Frank Capra? This 1989 gangster melodrama is indeed based on Capra's Lady For a Day (later remade as A Pocketful of Miracles) and features Chan as a rube from Canton who inadvertently comes to the rescue of a crime boss, and is mistakenly named his successor in the big crime world of 1930s Hong Kong. Chan attributes his great good luck to the flowers he buys from an elder street vendor named Lady Rose, who asks for Jackie's help when her daughter's rich fiancé wants to meet her (the daughter always pretended she came from a wealthy family). To help Lady Rose save face, Chan and company come to the rescue with a high society deception. This is reportedly one of Chan's personal favorites, and it's certainly one of his most accessible. Easy on the action and heavy on the sentiment (what fight scenes there are, though, are spectacular), Miracles' dubbing is atrocious, but that's part of its quirky charm. An optional purchase. (K. Lee Benson)