Thomas and David are two Hong Kong expatriates who work in Barcelona as a waiter and a cook in a food truck. At the same time, Hong Kong expatriate Moby, a private detective, is hired by a gentleman to find the long lost daughter of a nobleman, Sylvia, who is supposed to inherit a large inheritance from a count. It turns out Sylvia feigns working as a prostitute to steal the money from people. When Thomas and David give her refuge, she robs their apartment. When Moby finds them, they team up to protect her from Sylvia’s evil uncle, since she will lose her inheritance if she does not show up in three days. The uncle kidnaps Sylvia in his castle, but Thomas, David and Moby save her. She gets the inheritance, but renounces it to work as a waitress with Thomas and David.
One of Jackie Chan’s most sympathetic films, from the ‘golden age’ of Hong Kong cinema, “Wheels on Meals” is assembled more as a straight-forward comedy and amalgamation of typical archetypes of heroes helping a damsel in distress or princess in regaining her royalty status, than as an action film, though it still has several virtuoso martial arts fights near the end. The sheer audacity of the Hong Kong cinema is already displayed in the opening credits, where the Chinese script is showed over the Sagrada Familia basilica during night, yet it is overall exotic and cozy watching the two Hong Kong expatriates working in Barcelona, showing the nature of immigrants from their perspective. The story abounds with wacky ideas and amusing jokes: geek David uses his computer program to activate the food truck into opening and assembling its kitchen and seats, and later even uses its sprinkler to spray juice all over an enemy car during a car chase. Another funny moment is when the bad guys are searching for the heroes in a sewage, and Moby is hiding by lying low, but cannot stand the stench anymore so he has to emerge out, thereby revealing his hideout. Thomas sneaks in into the dinning room of the villain by hiding under the giant dress of a lady who sits at the villain’s table. All good jokes, except for the episodes of the two madmen, who are unnecessary and should have been cut. The three main actors work as a good team of friends, and Sammo Hung stands out as the chubby Moby. Jackie Chan plays the role of Thomas untypically as a comedian, though he switches to his martial arts persona in the finale, especially in the painstakingly choreographed fight with the thug in a white tuxedo, where at one point the thug swings his arm just above Chan, extinguishing a row of candle fire in the process. “Wheels” is a feel-good film, an unusual slice of cinema from Asia. It is sometimes clumsy and naive, with some lame gags, but it has some irresistible positive energy.
Grade:++
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