After amalgamating their great skills the year before in the observation-defying Project A, the Titans commonly referred to as The Three Dragons (or The Brothers Three) came together again for the highly provocative Wheels On Meals, which is about two cousins who own a mobile restaurant and get caught up with an heiress, a detective, and an unexpected amount of Spanish speaking Cantonese. These characters further add to the eccentricity of the plot. The Three Dragons are Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Biao three legendary martial arts filmmakers, each with incredible combat reflexes and superb comedic timing. Thanks to them the entire kung fu genre managed to migrate into the modern age. Imagine if Bruce Lee and Benny Hill shared a teleporter from The Fly, the outcome would be a glob of screaming flesh begging for death.
Thomas and David are two overly fit Chinese tan cousins living a single life in Spain and supporting themselves through their high-tech (for 1984 anyway) mobile restaurant. In their pastime, they engage in good-hearted activities like beating up bullying biker gangs or protecting their bed-hopping neighbor from his furious wife.
While on a visit to a mental asylum in Spain, one particular day comes to mind when Elvin spots a gorgeous woman named Sylvia who comes to visit her aunt. He and his father are completely taken by her beauty. They come across her a second time and everything takes a strange turn. It turns out that she is actually a con artist who disguises herself as a prostitute and robs her clients before she gets intimate with them. This feels oddly familiar. To his relief, it seems his father and Elvin did not find it concerning and offered to help; but little did he know that she has a whole lot of people trying to find her. Starting from Moby, who is a private detective just starting his career. He starts realizing that there are several other people who look for the woman he is after.
As it happens, Sylvia is supposed to be the heiress to a huge amount of money that is eyed upon by her sword swinging uncle, who is the one that sends waves of thugs into Barcelona to look for Sylvia, and after she is abducted and taken into her castle home, David, Thomas and Moby decide to merge forces to attack the castle and rescue her while indulging in some of the most amazing combat skills that both entertain and amuse.
If you are one of those people who, for whatever reason, are not interested or are blissfully ignorant of the true significance of the three protagonists, then Wheels On Meals may prove to be equally as annoying as the title which has been puzzlingly flipped (production company ‘Golden Harvest’ was very superstitious about beginning titles with the letter ‘M’). However, the secret to appreciating Wheels On Meals is not so much to watch it as fans almost rabidly wish it to be, that is, as an action masterpiece. Rather, consider it as some silly comedy that for some reason, bursts into full all-out kung fu bliss during the last part of the movie.
Let’s be frank: it took me a while to “get” Wheels On Meals, and even now, I’m still warming up to it. Much as Jackie Chan’s climactic showdown in the third act may rank among the top few achievements of mankind alongside the moon landing and penicillin, I have always found it a bit of a slog to get there. Since it wouldn’t be right to rate a movie five stars for roughly five minutes of fight footage, that’s all too easy to download on YouTube, I feel a little bit stuck.
I have to say, other than the fact that the contents of the finale are absolutely perfect, Thomas and David’s daily life is actually quite interesting. I mean, it is rather humorous how we first meet them. We see them both waking up only for the camera to focus on separate doors opening as it turns out there is only one single room that they both sleep in, sort of like an obnoxious Bert and Ernie. Everything from Chan’s version of a food truck that transforms into a skateboard and effortlessly serves food while riding around the square to Chan’s bumbling order-taking routine should unironically be deemed delightful because they serve a high level of ridiculousness.
This is purely classic Sammo with a multitude of humorous stunts, continuous mockery about his colleagues, and his deceptively large size while showcasing why he is such a brilliant action director. Even his plot lines that seem to diverge from his colleagues’ threads mark my words, ‘astounding’.
What is the issue that I have? When the actual storyline begins heating up and Sylvia emerges, curiously the film begins to drag, at a point when you want maybe one or two more fight scenes to alleviate the mildly tedious farce a little. Change Wheels On Meals to the first film featuring the Three Dragons and I guess it is easy to swallow in perhaps they did not realize just how much they had to work with here, but after Project A there is just some bafflement to it all. That is not even a problem in the comedy as their third collaboration, Dragons Forever, is a film that I absolutely love to bits and which I consider to showcase their brand of farcical violence in a far superior way.
Still, we cannot dispute that the movie turns into both poetry and moving art during the final scenes of the movie because during these scenes the three of them find creative ways to break into and outwit the villain’s hideout, somehow always managing to outsmart one another. Yeun dances on the set pieces while being chased, and astonishingly vivid telospars effortlessly throw legs over sofas, while Hung partakes in a silly sword fight with the main antagonist. Chan takes the cake, however, with one of the most spectacular fights not only in this movie but of all time which unimaginably exceeds the fight at the restaurant between the Iko Uwais divide.
Benny Urquidez is an American martial artist known for amassing a win/loss record of 49-1-1 with 39 wins coming via knockouts. Trading fists with him in the ring is akin to engaging in a brutal choreography masterclass, as Jackie Chan realizes, rather too late, that he will have to approach this matter of life or death as a simple sparring match. The fight is enhanced by cool details, such as the time Urquidez missed a kick, only to puff out the candles set up behind him. There was also the time Jackie got too casual, punched in the nose by someone forced to desperately counter-react, now that Jackie’s nose had been broken. The conflict plays out frame by frame and boasts rich plot lines from start to finish. It contains only one cutaway, and even that one can be undone with a “take that, Phantom Menace.” No wonder this fight is held at an incomprehensibly high level of esteem by everyone who watches it. It is that good. It puts me in a state of anxiety about the rating I formulated while watching it. But oh, as epic as Chan’s struggle with Urquidez is, my conflict with the middle third of the plot is greater and much less epic. With it, there really is no argument, and I feel like I’ll have to go with my gut on this one.
Despite having what might be a more interesting final fight altogether, Wheels On Meals falls short when compared to Dragons Forever and suffers from the unfortunate fate of being a three-course meal of which the first and last lessons are incredible, but the second one is difficult to swallow.
For a film that includes a lot of butt-kicking, having to make myself give this three stars is one I wasn’t waiting for to be my apologies guys.
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