Kailansorac
Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.
StyleSk8r
At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Orla Zuniga
It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review
blinkable
One is never too late for a Jackie Chan's movie, especially a comedy action movie of his. First of all, the way the story plot being presented is very straight forward like, literally doing a presentation with sub-titles of what to expect in the scenes as we go along. It's clean cut in such a way and you won't feel any interruptions. And with the theme on, 'let's do something big in this lifetime' coming out from average railroad workers, you know you are going to be in for rides filled with laughters. The bgm matched well with the scenes and helped to raise the dramatic-ness from the comedic aspects. To me, the most crucial point of this movie fell on the good chemistry among the quite star-studded casts. They matched each other so well in their rhythms and one can really feel their comrades and brotherhood, which at times really what made their actions/sayings funny. There were many times that I was really laughing my heads off and I knew this movie is such feel-good humor movie worth watching. I like how Jackie Chan was not a one-man show in this movie and helped to bring out the acting skills of others casted in this movie through their interactions. In fact, it was an eye opening for me to see Wang Kai with his supposedly 'cool-I-know-what-I'm-doing-in-war' Fan Chuan character turned out to be a hilarious character with his constant 'rational' thinking. Another hilarious character akin to Fan Chuan was the Japanese Captain played by Ikeuchi Hiroyuki, which I see in the movie as to now wonder why he and Fan Chuan 'battling' it out the most.I got to admit that my initial thought before I started to watch this movie was half expecting it to be typical China-produced war era movie, focusing much on patriotism. However, despite this movie having its patriotic moment, it wasn't shove down the audience throat like the usual ones. The feeling of "patriotism" (wanting for the freedom fighters to win despite their average tricks and fighting skills) was somewhat built into me as I watched the progress of how desperate this group of average men, dreaming of doing big things as they kept putting it in the movie, wanted to help the army to blow up the bridge. I am not the type who rewatch but if I ever do catch this movie on TV or something, I won't mind rewatching just for the laughters.
Daniel
If I cannot bring myself to finish a movie, I count it as a bad movie. I've watched a lot of Chinese movies, and this one stands out in that it didn't draw me in at all. I watched about a half hour before I finally gave up at the death scene of that injured 八路 soldier. In a well-made movie, this kind of movie would theoretically provide some purpose and drive to the action that follows, but even with his blood dripping onto Jackie Chan's face, I felt no impact whatsoever. It feels like an episode of a kids' TV show that doesn't know if it wants to stay slapstick or get serious.
cutebertms
First of all, this is just a china propaganda movie. They want to "educate" viewers some battle fought by the communist Eighth Route Army （八路军） on a fictional bridge. The plot is rather empty and no reason was given why that bridge has to be destroyed... (maybe i missed it in the dialog but it should be trivial for the war).Next is how they portray the Japanese soldiers. All of them act without much intellect, and this make the movie one-sided and extremely boring for a action movie.Not much for comedy part, maybe the cowardice of the Japaneses might capture a few laugh....
boblipton
I went to see RAILROAD TIGERS because Jackie Chan is in it... and found a nice mix of comedy and drama as an inept group of railroad thieves during the Second World War discovered they were Chinese first and out for themselves second.I have been watching a goodly number of Chinese movies in the theaters over the last few years and have been impressed by the manner in which those movies mix and match elements from genres that, for more other national cinemas, seem impossible; a movie might start as a Noir caper, turn into a coming-of-age romance and mutate into a time-travel story. So, looking at RAILROAD TIGERS, I don't see much stretching. Service comedies began to penetrate the cinema with WHAT PRICE GLORY? in the 1920s; comedies in which thieves and con men discover a love of country so fierce that they are willing to die for it were handled well in the 1940s with MR. LUCKY; so this movie, which starts off as slapstick and ends in a desperate, deadly battle, is neither disrespectful nor unprecedented. It is simply well done, thanks to Mr. Chan and and a cast and crew that includes a fine performance by Kai Wang as the former warlord's soldier who finds his commitment to China in the face of Japanese oppression.
