Jackie Chan in Fists of Fire: Jackie Chan Densetsu
Good morning everyone! Today may be another Friday for many and for a few, it's the release day for Street Fighter 6. By "a few," I mean more like tens of thousands of fighting game fans on Steam, alone, swarming the servers as it was released local time in the United States. Last weekend was Combo Breaker, an event that celebrated various fighting games both new and old. Some of the older arcade games have a bit of a history and there's one game that deserves its own "roses" so to speak. Regardless, fighting games are on the menu and I have an interesting game to discuss, Jackie Chan in Fists of Fire: Jackie Chan Densetsu or its original title, The Kung-Fu Master Jackie Chan.
Released in 1995, the concept of using a well-known martial artist to sell a fighting game seemed like an obvious trend that had yet to manifest. Mortal Kombat was released a few years before and proved that using digitized actors was a successful and cost-efficient way to develop these titles. However, a chance encounter with Jackie Chan and his production crew would give Japanese arcade developer and publisher, Kaneko, an opportunity of a lifetime. During the filming of the movie Thunderbolt, the production staff needed sponsors to help fund the film and Kaneko agreed to help on two major conditions.
The first was a fairly simple one in that Kaneko billboards were shown prominently during scenes in the movie, specifically during the final race held at the Sendai Hi-Land Raceway. The second request was to use Jackie Chan's likeliness as well as his production staff for motion capture. This motion capture would then be used to create The Kung-Fu Master Jackie Chan, which looking back at it now doesn't sound like a bad tradeoff. Jackie Chan and his company were given enough funding to finish the movie and got to star in an impromptu video game all in the same time frame. Very few can say they've experienced such a thing and there's a fantastic interview on Hardcore Gaming 101 interviewing Thorsten Nickel.
Nickel, along with other affiliated stunt people and actors within Jackie Chan's camp, was digitized into The Kung-Fu Master yet in his case, his role was almost as important as Jackie Chan's. In the movie Thunderbolt, Nickel played the main villain, Cougar, an ambitious race driver who goes to great lengths to challenge Jackie Chan to a race. Jackie Chan plays a former race driver who works with the police department to target other illegal street racers. While Chan was doing his job, Cougar feels excitement about being bested by someone with racing skills.
So he traumatizes Jackie Chan's sisters (in-movie siblings of course), almost kills Chan several times, and puts him through the wringer to finally give him a race that ended as one would expect. I saw this movie outside of The Kung-Fu Master Jackie Chan as I was genuinely curious how Jackie Chan would fit in a racing-themed movie. Surprisingly, Jackie Chan plays the drama role well in this movie, being one of his darkest ones.
It didn't have most of the comedic charm that he exhibits in his other films and that's perfectly fine. He also flexes his multi-lingual knowledge, speaking in Cantonese throughout most of the film, English with English-speaking characters, and Japanese when the movie enters the racing portion of the film. I recommend this movie a lot, especially in its original language, and it can be watched in its entirety with ads on YouTube here. It has something in it for everyone who is a fan of cars, racing, and Jackie Chan beating twenty people while sliding down building panels.
Cougar in Thunderbolt is a sociopathic "evil just to be evil" villain, but in The Kung-Fu Master Jackie Chan, he's simply "Thorsten." Almost every character in the game is just the likeliness of the actual actor used as a reference. This isn't a video game adaptation of a racing movie, like how they are making a Gran Turismo movie based on the racing game itself. It's simply a large tournament where the player defeats all the CPUs and several Jackie Chans await the player as final bosses. There are three different Jackies, one yellow, purple, and white, representing a different fighting style Jackie utilized in films such as Drunken Master and Project A.
To the surprise of no one, they are all also the best characters in the entire game to the point where if a player picks Jackie, the other player must pick a Jackie themself to be even viable. Without the Chans, the game balance is "fairly" even or at least as balanced as one would expect from a random fighting game developed in mere weeks. Regardless, a Jackie Chan arcade fighting game was so absurd as an idea let alone in execution that it drew enough crowds for an updated release. Fists of Fire made all three Jackie Chans playable, making this version the "gold standard."
It has become a collector's item over the years, with copies seemingly easy enough to come by. At Galloping Ghost, I saw a cabinet that contained the original Kung-Fu Master Jackie Chan game, but the sequel is always a fun side game to expect to see on someone's supergun set-up. The gameplay is fairly easy to grasp as it has a basic "four button" set-up with a linear combo system. What I also found amusing was that each character had automatic "fatality scenes" that played at the end of each match. Guess who doesn't have such a sequence? Jackie Chan of course. Why would he want that in his own game?
After Fists of Fire, Kaneko existed for a few more years until they would slowly dissolve. Coincidentally, they would make a 3D racing game on the PlayStation in 1997 titled Zen Nihon GT Senshuken Max. I've never heard of this game before researching for this piece, so when I have free time I'll have to take a look into it. Could this potentially be the Thunderbolt "video game adaptation" that fans of the movie expected? Doubtful, but I love an obscure racer. Jackie Chan would star in several video games, including Jackie Chan Stuntmaster, and of course Lei Wulong from Tekken 2 who would become a series staple. Hopefully, we can see him make a return in Tekken 8!