Larry Yang’s second film with Jackie Chan (following 2023’s schmaltzy hagiographic Ride On) is a twisty crime caper which, despite being an epic two and a half hours, never outstays its welcome. This is a grittier, bloodier Jackie Chan film than we have been used to seeing (no CGI pandas here, that’s for sure), and its thoroughly pleasing to see Chan (at the age of 71) refusing to settle down with his pipe and slippers just yet, turning in the type of violent/goofy martial arts cop film he might have made in his athletic heyday. Many of his more recent, family-friendly action comedies have come unstuck in their sprawling, vapid sense of globe-trotting commerciality – see Chinese Zodiac, Kung Fu Yoga, Vanguard, and so many more – which seem to play more like vacant travelogues with mild slapstick diversions. This film is centred around a single location – the urban dichotomy of Macau, with its contemporary Vegas-like hotels and casinos, alongside its colonial architecture and high-rise dwellings – which helps to neatly contain the action and drama. The film (a remake of the 2007 Hong Kong thriller, An Eye in the Storm) also focuses on a subject which China is very well known for – surveillance – and if the super high-tech team at the heart of this film is anything to go by, then no one in Macau is safe from the roving, recording eye of ‘Big Brother’, with body cams, heat sensors, forensic-level databases and a myriad other technologies at the police’s disposal. Their latest technological trick appears to be a talking bot which uses AI to track, trace and inform the coppers of their next moves. However, sometimes – just like you’ve seen in any clichéd action movie featuring a grizzled old star – the modern ways are just no match for the ‘old school’. This is why the coppers call in retired super-spy Officer Wong (Chan) to lead a young team in the ‘old ways’ of surveillance to help capture another wily geriatric cyber-sleuth, Fu (Tony Leung), aka ‘the Shadow’, who has absconded with a heck-load of someone else’s cryptocurrency. In shades of Ride On, Wong is teamed with another estranged younger female – in this case, a niece (Zhang Zifeng) eager to prove herself in a man’s world. Similarly, Fu is having familial dramas of his own, being the figurehead of a glamorous young troop of summersaulting, high-kicking tech crooks harbouring their own agenda. Tony Leung (whose working relationship with Chan stretches to over 35 years, and includes the films Island of Fire and The Myth) is having a field-day as the sadistic, blade-spinning kingpin who manages to somehow evade capture at every turn. His scenes with Jackie are delicate, charming, and cleverly bely the known distrust at the heart of their characters’ mutual respect. It’s a riot, also, to see these guys in their dotage moving like teenagers as they throw-down in increasingly athletic, violent abandon (or, at least, their stunt doubles do). It’s the sort of sprightly, uncanny, and completely implausible fighting we saw from Louis Koo and Sammo Hung in another recent Chinese smash, Twilight of the Warrior. Fun, sure, but for the future of martial arts cinema, it does beg the question: when are we going to give the younger kids a go? Those who have been sleeping on Jackie’s recent insipid adventures might want to wake up to this one.

The Shadow’s Edge is released in UK cinemas from 3 October 2025 courtesy of Trinity CineAsia.