Jackie Chan is not messing around anymore. While the 63-year-old international action star is known for his comedic physicality and upbeat everyman hero roles, the new trailer for the upcoming thriller The Foreigner promises Chan in full-on Revenge Dad mode, à la Taken. And that means a lot of people are gonna die.
Chan plays a humble London businessman Quan, whose long-buried past (cue vintage photo of young shirtless Jackie) erupts in a revenge-fueled vendetta when his teenage daughter is killed in a terrorist blast. In his search for the identity of the bombers, Quan is forced into a cat-and-mouse conflict with a British government official, played by Pierce Brosnan, whose own past may hold clues to the identities of the killers.
Note the look on Jackie Chan's face. That's a look that says I am going to kill all the terrorists.
The Foreigner is based on the 1992 novel The Chinaman by Stephen Leather.
Yeah, I'm glad they didn't go with that original title too. (EDIT: Some have raised valid concerns that Chan is playing a Vietnamese character -- a detail I didn't catch when I first viewed this trailer. The character's ethnicity and background are not insignificant, and the casting deserves scrutiny. It's definitely worth further discussion.)
Maybe this won't be good. I'm sure it'll be fairly ridiculous. But in terms of thrills, I am down to find out. I can't wait to see that scene where Jackie opens the duffel bag of decoy shit in the kitchen. I don't even know what's happening there. I just want to see Revenge Dad Jackie flip a table and unleash hell on every single dude in that flat. And that camouflage leaf trap thing in the woods? What the hell is going on there? I don't know. But I want to know.
So yeah, when can I buy my ticket? The Foreigner hits theaters on October 13.
