JNC THEATER: Long before Fast & Furious, there was Jackie Chan’s Thunderbolt

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For many, 2001’s The Fast and the Furious was perhaps a seminal moment in US tuning history. Hollywood movies’ star cars failed to reflect the reality of America’s mall parking lots on a Friday night, but suddenly F&F came about and brought Japanese cars to the big screen. Admittedly, it took us a while to get hip to the scene, but in Asia, long before Paul Walker ever blew the welds on his first manifold, there was the Jackie Chan’s 1996 opus Thunderbolt.

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The premise of the movie sounds like, well, that of a mid-90s kung fu movie. Jackie Chan plays an ex-Mitsubishi test driver who has settled down as a tow truck operator in Hong Kong.

Little does he know, a race car driver turned homicidal international bad guy known as Werner Krugman has come to town to race at the local race track and do bad deeds. After getting tied up in Krugman’s international tour of evil-doing while working with the Hong Kong police to impound illegal street racers, Krugman kidnaps Jackie Chan’s daughter and forces him into a race to get her back.

As completely ludicrous as the plot sounds, Thunderbolt is actually one of Jackie Chan’s best films.Filming took place at actual venues throughout Asia, including Batu Tiga Circuit in Malaysia and Sendai Hi-Land in Japan. To be honest, the story isn’t any more ludicrous than modern Fast & Furious movies.

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Plus, the roster of cars is pretty excellent. This being a Jacki Chan flick, the hero cars are all Mitsubishis — GTO VR-4, Lancer Evolution III, FTO and Pajero Super Exceed. However, minor characters get to drive a whole host of Japanese favorites of the era, including an SW20 MR2, FD RX7, R30 Skyline police cars, and even an EG Civic Ferio. HKS stickers abounded. As the villain, Kreuger himself even drives an R32 GT-R throughout the movie.

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One of the best scenes in the movie is the first major chase scene, which involves Jackie Chan commandeering a Mitsubishi FTO so he can chase down Krugman’s Skyline GT-R. The 5 minute chase sequence includes copious ramming, a random dig race being officiated by a dove, and high flying R32 stunts.

After a significant amount of kung fu, fight scenes, a bunch of half naked yakuza, and general Jackie Chan antics, the movie reaches its climax in the single most destructive race since the advent of the car.

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Played entirely in double time, cars go flying, inexplicably burst into flames, land directly on top of each other, and flip end over end for absolutely no reason. At one point Jackie Chan uses a spun out Honda NSX to jump his GTO (lead photo).

So if you ever wished that The Fast and The Furious had more kung fu in it, if you thought 2 Fast 2 Furious didn’t have enough Mitsubishi product placement, or simply long for a movie about Japanese tuner cars film in period during the height of JDM modification culture, you owe it to yourself to watch Thunderbolt.

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16 Responses to JNC THEATER: Long before Fast & Furious, there was Jackie Chan’s Thunderbolt

  1. Andrew says:

    Is this streaming any where legally ?

  2. SHC says:

    Haha! “legally”? Probably not in this day and age of pirating. Aargh!

  3. Nigel says:

    Seen it, it’s awesome I if you can get over the cars ruining at double film speed !!

  4. christoffSF says:

    Thunderbolt is fun but I’m still partial to Who Am I? JUST because it made me and everyone I know obsess over Lancer Evo IV’s after that car got, if my poor memory serves me, maybe 20 minutes of screen time in the movie – and entirely in chase scenes

  5. goodshow_aa says:

    Nigel, if you can get past f and f have cars with 18 speed transmission, I am sure you can get over double speed driving. The movie is very good, one of my favorites of his, lots of cool cars, and basically every racers dream come true.

  6. Lupus says:

    Yeesss, great movie. But i warn Ya – don’t watch it with mandarin dubbing. 😀

    Keeping in the movie topic – i strongly recommend Shutokou Kousoku Trial series (5 movies overall). From late ’80s to mid ’90s. Wangan blast’n in it’s finest. 😉

  7. Ekin Cheng says:

    and after Thunderbolt, and before Hollywood got obsessed with NAWS everything, this came out

    Legend of Spped

    • Rayson Kong says:

      Yup legend of speed is pretty much another all time great from the Hong Kong entertainment industry. Everything were keep as realistic as possible with great movie plots. This movie was a very interesting reflect on the rivalry between the EVO and STI at their best era.

  8. Evan Poole says:

    Legend of speed was one of my all time favorites back in the day. I remember watching it bootlegged DVD at my boys house back in early 2000 lol and we all drooled ober the cars and race footge. but the Evo scene in Who Am I did it for me..

  9. Ray Ho says:

    Thanks for reminding us about Thunderbolt. Need to catch up on it again. Always a fan of Jackie Chan flicks. May be also binge on the F&F series.

  10. Fikri Z says:

    I still remember back in late 1995, when Jackie Chan came to Malaysia to shot the scenes in Batu Tiga Circuit for the movie. Back then my uncle was working at the circuit & just so happens I was there visiting him at the track, because Batu Tiga Circuit was main racing circuit back then before Sepang International & was near around 10 km from my house. By the time I was there, I saw Jackie Chan & his crew prepping up all the cool cars on the track. I believe it almost around more than 50 cars & I once read on local newspaper Jackie Chan use like total of more than 100 cars for the movie. To me, this movie is not just iconic for the great line-up of Japanese & German cars of 90’s but a great memories of Batu Tiga Circuit as it was demolished in 2003 due to greedy politician selling it to private developer for a luxury apartment.

    • Ben Hsu says:

      Thanks for sharing your story. It’s a shame the great circuits are being demolished. The same has been happening in LA for many years too. It must have been mindblowing to see all those cars during the shoot!

  11. Marv says:

    You guys should watch how Jackie Chan ripped off a countach in Rumble in the Bronx. Epic!

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