Vanguard: Weak Storytelling and Wonky CGI Diminish Jackie Chan Actioner

By Thom Ernst

Rating: C+

Vanguard, director Stanley Tong’s latest action film, gives reason for the term ‘mild uproar’ to exist. Generally, mild uproar is as disposable of a descriptor as is the phrase ‘a little bit pregnant,’ and yet with Vanguard, it’s a functional way of describing reactions to Tong’s film. It’s not unanimous, but enough dissent among martial arts film enthusiasts are labeling Vanguard a failure.

Read our interview with Stanley Tong

The culprit seems to be the film’s unmistakable CGI effects. Knowing something of this kerfuffle going into the movie put me on high alert. Indeed, the scenes in question—two snarling hyenas and a vicious lion attack, plus several other lapses involving jet skis and battleships—are obvious enough to push the film towards animation rather than a thriller.

You might think that Tong, who has worked in film since 1983, would think better than to leave the task of generating believable images to computers rather than relying on camera tricks and creative editing. But, unlike others, I’m not as put off by the digital transgressions. The weird inauthentic flow of the lions and hyenas play like some fever-induced nightmare.

Blame it on having to watch a big-screen film on a small screen (although I’m sure others are also limited to the small screens) or blame it on comparisons to the digital tiger in the underperforming Nicolas Cage killer-animal thriller, Primal (2019) or retaining unhappy memories of the deer sequence in The Ring Two (2005). I manage to override the film’s technical glitches and enjoy the buffoonery that is something of a trademark in this kind of actioner.

The bigger complaint I have beyond Vanguard’s sublevel CGI is an underlying impression that something about the story isn’t quite right. It’s not easy to place, but the not quite right conundrum lingers on the edges of nationalistic xenophobia that tends to want to excuse itself by representing a minority of good people living among the majority of evil.

It’s a familiar problem with any film that pits nation against nation, and since Vanguard trots around the globe across five countries and nine cities, there is plenty of cultural villainy to exploit. And even the unoffending population is degraded to a level of subservient kowtowing.

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And there is some old-school patriarchy going on allocating female characters in roles of damsels in distress. Even Miya Muqi’s bad-ass warrior turn diminishes when subjected to a scene where she is little more than bikini-clad bait.

The film is more successful when playing to the comic elements Tong and Jackie Chan established in their earlier work: Rumble in the Bronx (1995) and First Strike (1996). There’s a lot of mugging for the camera and some clever weapon improvisation in the fight scenes.

The plot involves a mercenary organization that targets a man and his daughter for absconding with large sums of money. The man hires Vanguard, a covert security organization (think Archer only with more extensive military and not as dysfunctional), run by Tang Huating (Chan).

Let’s be clear: Vanguard is not a great film. Arguably, it’s one of the lesser successes in the Stanley Tong/Jackie Chan oeuvre. But even if Vanguard tilts the scales slightly lower than the duos earlier efforts (Vanguard is their ninth collaboration), it still doesn’t dip low enough to be a failure.

Vanguard. Directed by Stanley Tong. Starring Jackie Chan, Miya Muqi, and Yang Yang. Opens in select theatres November 20.