Shanghai Knights

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * *)

It's always good to have one's low expectations lifted. It was hard to think that the sequel to Shanghai Noon - the hit Jackie Chan-Owen Wilson Old West buddy-comedy which remains the best of the martial arts funnyman's stateside movies - was going to be anything but a cash-in re-run. But Knights is fitfully inspired and frequently hilarious.

Sometimes for the same old reasons - mostly involving Chan's inventively gymnastic ways of beating up another gang of goons.

Yes, the rest of the movie exists for those set-pieces, but at least the geography's changed. This one is set in London just as Queen Victoria is celebrating her 50th jubilee.

It's a little convoluted getting there - Chan's Chon Wang and Wilson's Roy O'Bannon go to England to find Wang's sister after their father is murdered and the Imperial Seal, which was in his keeping, is stolen.

But once it's high-kicking up the cobblestones of Oxford St, resembling Oliver Twist with a black belt, all to a soundtrack of 60s britpop, it's infectious in its sheer goofiness.

It's a sightseeing tour, too. Along the way the pair have enough time to visit the House of Lords, Madame Tussaud's, Stonehenge and Big Ben while helping put a young Charles Chaplin on the right path and inspire one Arthur Conan Doyle to concentrate on the writing. Various scenes deliver tributes to Gene Kelly's famous Singing in the Rain scene, silent screen comedian Harold Lloyd and Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell.

It helps that it has a good villain - as tenth-in-line-to-the-throne Lord Rathbone played by Aidan Gillen, who does enough here to promote him as heir to Gary Oldman's king of Anglo-baddies.

Of course, the plot is barely serviceable, and Wilson's surfer-dude delivery seems to be getting worse as Chan's English improves. But this chop-socky pantomime fluently speaks the language of big dumb fun.

Cast: Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, Fann Wong Director: David Dobkin Running time: 114 mins Rating: M (low-level violence) Screening: Village, Hoyts Berkeley cinemas