Cast: Jackie Chan, Wang Leehom
Have you ever been waiting for the film that shows the ravages of war without romanticising warfare, heroism, or military strategy? Turns out that it’s been in Jackie Chan’s head for 20 years, in the form of Little Big Soldier, where a rank and file soldier manages to capture a great general after a battle.
“没大没小”(lack of respect for elders) premise scared Jackie, but the movie gets far more subversive: all the soldier wants is to return to a simple life of a civilian, free from the annoyances of war, compulsory conscription, and national service. He’s going to drag the general back home for a handsome reward that would let him retire in peace.
Jackie Chan’s trek across China with his high-profile war prisoner is as politically conscious as a travelogue can get. The harrowing journey across the fractured social and physical landscape is punctuated by Chan’s folk songs and its depiction of the breakdown of ordinary life serves as a meaningful moral rebuke to the all-too-popular, all-too-glib “war is necessary” line that some people cynically spout and others sincerely believe. Jackie Chan’s film suggests that the Chinese should revere more a Book of Peace or Survival over Sun Tzu’s manual.
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