Jackie Chan plays the protagonist of “Ride On”, Lao Luo, with Liu Haocun playing his daughter Xiao Bao, and Guo Qilin playing her lawyer boyfriend Naihua.
Shi Yan Neng also appears as stuntman Daiwei, with Wu Jing playing Lao Luo’s stunt student Yuanjie, Yu Rongguang playing businessman Xe Xin, and Andy On also playing debt collector, Dami Ge.
Lao Luo was once a prolific stuntman in the Chinese film industry, only for a major injury on one stunt to take him out of the business for a period of extended recovery.
His career also placed a strain on his relationship with his daughter Xiao Bao, with Luo now caring for his beloved horse Red Hare while debt collectors breath down his neck.
After a video of Luo fighting off a gang of thugs hired to shake him down for his debts goes viral, he is offered a chance at a stunt comeback, so Daiwei sets him up quickly on multiple film projects.
Meanwhile, Luo’s indebtedness threatens to see Red Hare pulled away from him by business tycoon Xe Xin, with Lao and Xiao Bao recruiting her boyfriend Naihua to help them in their legal fight to keep Red Hare.
One doesn’t need to read too far between the lines to understand that “Ride On” telling the tale of a one-time stunt legend in the Hong Kong film industry is somewhat autobiographical when it involves Jackie Chan.
“Ride On” isn’t necessarily a Jackie Chan swan song, per se, but it is a memoir of sorts on his legacy of a career’s worth of injuries and the shift in priorities in his own career and that of Lao Luo.
Jackie engages in maybe ten percent of the level of harrowing stunts that he once did, and has shifted his focus much more in the direction of establishing himself as a character actor who headlines action movies. “Ride On” is one of his most candid movies in that respect, especially in his relationship with Red Hare.
Lao’s friendship with Red Hare is a heart-warming tale of a man who rescued a horse seemingly destined for an early death and nursed him into a thoroughbred champion.
Jackie has had buddy chemistry with Chris Tucker and Owen Wilson, been action movie partners with Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung, and has been everything in between, but the warm relationship he has with Red Hare is one of his best dramatic performances in years.
“Ride On” takes that connection through territory that’s heart-wrenching, hilarious, and outright thrilling, but the simplicity of Luo’s bond with Red Hare is the undeniable and quiet loving heart of “Ride On”.
As stated above, “Ride On” keeps its action scenes in check, basically having three on the docket, but they entertain with the complex creativity of Jackie’s early career.
With one of his first early breaks being his showdown with Jackie in “New Police Story”, it’s quite a treat to see Andy On as the lead antagonist of all three big fights of “Ride On”, while Jackie alternately out-maneuvers his debt-collecting pursuers or uses his surroundings (and horse) to his advantage.
Jackie has used animals in action scenes before, but it adds a lot to Luo and Red Hare’s bond for the latter to be a major presence in the movie’s action scenes, adding plenty of levity in doing so.
The third battle at Luo’s home definitely takes the top spot with Jackie using his homestead to fight his enemies as only he knows how, without anyone truly getting hurt, to boot.
Even with its share of action and comedy, “Ride On” is on a different tier from almost any other Jackie Chan movie.
It’s not even really an action movie outright, with the stakes never rising to life-or-death levels and Jackie’s co-stars Shi Yan Neng, Wu Jing, and Yu Rongguang never throwing a punch in the whole movie.
Both Jackie Chan and Lao Luo have reached a point in their lives and career where the meaning of being a stuntman has a new and profound weight and dimension after years of injuries and personal sacrifice.
“Ride On” may only have a few samplings of the action of Jackie Chan’s heyday, but in its own way, that makes it mean a lot more.
Jackie Chan and Red Hare will tug at your heartstrings as much as they make you laugh in “Ride On”.
While the movie has a handful of Jackie Chan-style action scenes that get the job done, its primary focus is on the legacy of Jackie Chan and stuntmen around the world – that happens to have a horse at the heart of the story.
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