Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		1.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.0

Battle Creek Brawl Blu-ray Movie Review

Brought to you by Kellogg's?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 16, 2013

Note: This film is currently only available in this double feature: Jackie Chan: Battle Creek Brawl / City Hunter.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Jackie Chan is one of the biggest international superstars of his generation, a performer who not only performs his own stunts, but has become synonymous with a certain subgenre of martial arts fare where comedy is often king. But it may surprise some to know that Chan actually not only had a fairly hard time matriculating into the American market, even his early Hong Kong efforts were met with less than resounding success. Though Chan had actually been appearing in films since his early childhood, it took him several tries as an adult to finally break through into mainstream prominence in Hong Kong, ultimately really breaking into the big time with 1978’s blockbuster Drunken Master, a film which perfectly typified what would become the almost patented Chan blend of action and comedy. A couple of years later Chan made his first starring attempt for the American market, Battle Creek Brawl, which bombed pretty spectacularly. He stuck around long enough to play a fairly minor role in The Cannonball Run, before striking out again in The Protector Chan retreated to his more familiar geographical turf for the next several years, increasing his star power and box office appeal in that neck of the woods. It would be close to a decade until Chan finally attempted to reestablish himself once again stateside, and even then it took a little while before he finally had his first true blockbuster, 1998’s Rush Hour. The rest, as they say, is history, and it’s perhaps indicative of how popular Chan has become that few seem to remember his long struggle to achieve that level of stardom. This new double feature from Shout! Factory collects that first American bomb Battle Creek Brawl with a fondly remembered 1993 Hong Kong offering from Chan, City Hunter.

It’s perhaps at least a little surprising that Battle Creek Brawl (which is also known as The Big Brawl) didn’t do better than it did, for it not only has the trademark Chan combination of goofy humor and visceral martial arts sequences, many of the creative staff had been ported over from what was at that point arguably the biggest hit in the still nascent martial arts genre, Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon. But that may have been at least one of the problems Battle Creek Brawl faced: audiences may indeed have been expecting another Bruce Lee knockoff instead of Chan’s particular take on this idiom.

Another issue with the film may have been the fact that it was set in a sort of mythical 1930s era Chicago, a milieu that made Chan’s character of Jerry Kwan weirdly out of place. Even the attempt to shoehorn in an almost Flower Drum Song-esque subplot of differing Chinese generations assimilating (or not) into the American way of life in different ways isn’t especially well handled, leaving a sort of Untouchables aspect, courtesy of Jose Ferrer’s over the top mob boss, on one hand, and Chan and his crew on the other. This odd Chinese-American disparity is symptomatic of another related issue which Chan himself has mentioned in subsequent reminiscences about the film, namely that writer-director Robert Clouse (himself a holdover from Enter the Dragon) had an American action point of view in mind, while Chan wanted something more individual for himself. At that point in his career, however, Chan simply didn't have the clout to prevail in this particular brawl.

There’s also not a whale of a lot of story to be had in Battle Creek Brawl. When Ferrer’s henchman put the squeeze on Jackie’s father, a respectable business owner, Jackie takes them out without much problem. That brings him to the attention of Ferrer, who ends up kidnapping Jackies’ brother’s fiancée in order to get Jackie to agree to participate in an organized street fight (weirdly reminiscent of another recent Blu-ray release, Walter Hill’s Hard Times). Jackie then has to undergo a regimen of training to get himself ready to battle, though the ultimate outcome is never in much doubt.

Despite its kind of lackluster overall ambience, there’s a generally amiable quality to Battle Creek Brawl, one best exemplified by Chan’s already most apparent ease before the camera. The film never really gels or soars into the martial arts stratosphere, but Chan is his typically disarming presence, bringing a lithe athleticism and slyly winking self- deprecation to his portrayal. Unfortunately just about everything surrounding him doesn’t seem to be partaking in the same joie de vivre.

Battle Creek Brawl Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Battle Creek Brawl is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.34:1. This is another master provided by Fortune Star and there seems to be little doubt that in the case of Battle Creek Brawl this is an upscale. The image is fuzzy and ill defined, with noticeable edge enhancement halos cropping up from time to time. There's variable clarity throughout this presentation—at times it approaches adequate levels, at other times, it devolves into near VHS territory. There are also consistent density issues which present a kind of quasi-flicker at times. The best thing about this presentation is probably the color, which can be quite good at times, albeit skewed toward the ruddy side of things some of the time. One thing that must be kept in mind with Battle Creek Brawl is that thie film has always had a kind of shoddy look, one that is only minimally "helped" by this presentation.

Battle Creek Brawl Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Battle Creek Brawl features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix as well as the film's original mono sound mix delivered via DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Both of these tracks sport fairly decent fidelity, though both have a surprisingly boxy sound at times that belies a perhaps less than fulsome approach to the original recording of these soundtracks. Additionally, the repurposed 5.1 track has some pretty noticeable phasing, probably due to effects being artificially placed around the soundfield and the resultant doubling of other ambient noises. Dialogue is cleanly presented here, if never outstandingly so, but some may be expecting more visceral "wow", especially in the film's action sequences, than is offered here.

Battle Creek Brawl Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Jackie Chan's American Adventure with Producer Fred Weintraub (1080p; 11:50) is a surprisingly sweet sit down with Weintraub, who obviously has very warm memories of working with Chan.


• Interview with Actress Kristine DeBell (1080p; 5:10). DeBell gives some of the history of how she got the role and then the shoot.


• Theatrical Trailers (1080i; 5:09)

Battle Creek Brawl Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Battle Creek Brawl has a lot of what would become signature Jackie Chan moves, including a kind of goofy combination of humor and action. But the film frankly never really gels very well. Part of this may be due to Chan's "newness" in the American market at the time, or the uneasy collaboration between Chan and writer-director Robert Clouse, which leaves the film floundering much like one of the cartoonish villains trying to overcome Chan's martial arts mastery.