Shanghai Noon

Jackie Chan in the Old West! The sanguine sovereign of the kung-fu caper comedy stars as an imperial guard dispatched from China to rescue a kidnapped princess (Lucy Liu) from a traitorous expatriate and his cowboy cohorts in Carson City, circa 1881. Chan has a blast injecting his Buster Keaton-inspired martial arts shtick into a cowboys-and-Indians motif, but the nonplussed and mirthful Owen Wilson (Bottle Rocket, The Minus Man, The Haunting) steals the movie as an incompetent outlaw who takes Chan under his wing. A capricious, winking mock-Western; it's just a shame the female leads are wasted (you know Lucy Liu could have kicked some cowpoke posterior!). Recommended. (R. Blackwelder)