The Killer Meteors

A 1976 novelty item for Jackie Chan completists only; he plays one of his rare costume roles, and his only bad guy. The star is Jimmy Wang Yu (One Armed Swordsman) as Hero Mei, a freelance warrior whose top-secret weapons are explosive projectiles known as killer meteors. Mei is hired by the so-called "Immortal Meteor," Hua Wa-bin (Chan), to eliminate his pesky wife, who (Hua claims) is plotting to kill him. There are some clever, gimmicky fight sequences and some amusingly far-fetched weaponry. A couple of glamorous sword-fighting women are also involved, as is a potion called the Pulverizing Drug, which melts people into puddles, like vampires exposed to sunlight. But there's so much plot to get through (adapted from a lengthy serial novel by Gu Long), and so many long-winded explanations to plow through that none of the characters have much free time for fighting. The movie plays both as hard-boiled (with everybody betraying everybody else) and as a medieval Chinese conspiracy yarn: kung fu Robert Ludlum. --David Chute