Shanghai Noon is the usual Jackie Chan action/comedy with a martial arts flavor. He can do it well and once again he delivers a fine movie that is entertaining and quite enjoyable. Chan's unique blend of comedy and action sets his films apart from other Hong Kong action-style films, and probably makes them more accessible to American audiences.

The movie starts out in 1881 China, at the Forbidden City. Chon Wang (Chan) is not one of the top soldiers in the Imperial Guard. But he does overhear Princess Pei Pei (Lucy Liu) as she decides to flee to America and away from a prearranged marriage. Alas it is all a plot, for the English tutor who convinced Pei Pei to run away leaves a ransom demand behind.

It is decided that the three best Guardsmen will escort the Royal Interpreter to Carson City, Nevada to deliver the ransom of 100 000 pieces of gold. Chon asks to go, and since he's the Interpreter's nephew he is allowed to go as a gopher. This also explains why he knows a fair amount of English.

Once in California, we see the party traveling on a train. A quartet of bandits, led by Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson) -- a rather talkative desperado with a sense of honor and a bad aim -- is going to board the train and steal any money in the train's safe. They board the passenger car where they start taking money from the passengers.

In walks the Interpreter, holding an empty pot of tea. He's shot by one of the banditos, then they move on to the next car. Chon wonders where his uncle is and goes looking. Once he finds him dead, he chases after the outlaws, and eventually foils their plan to steal the money.

The crazy bandit decides he's going to take charge of the band, and buries Roy in the California desert up to his head. Chon comes along, gets directions to Carson City, and leaves a pair of chopsticks so Roy can dig his way out. Then there are indians, a marriage, a crooked marshall, a former Imperial Guardsman, lots more fighting leading to an ending almost out of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The actors. Jackie Chan puts in a good role. Since he does his own stunts its quite painful to watch some of the scenes as you think "that's gotta hurt". Owen Wilson does a lot of the dialogue and the character is the sort of well- meaning bad guy that you love to root for. Lucy Liu has a small role, although she does fight a bit. Roger Yuan and Xander Berkeley are the two bad guys: Lo Fong who is Chon's nemesis and Marshall Van Cleef who is Roy's bane.

The only other notable role is Brandon Merrill as an Indian woman who is married to Chon one-third of the way into the movie. She only shows up in a few scenes throughout the movie and is usually silent besides. But it's kind of cool since her character comes in and gets the two protagonists out of several jams that they get into.

So I can heartily recommend this movie. If you've seen a couple of Jackie Chan movies then you have a good idea of what to expect, so it probably won't be as good for you as for a newbie. Not that Chan's movies are predictable, but there are elements that tend to repeat from movie to movie. As usual the comedy is good but not to the level of an actual comedy-only movie, where it would just be annoying in an action flick.