"The Myth" / "神話"

"The Myth" is a movie produced by Jackie Chan and directed by Stanley Tong. It revolves around Jack (Jackie Chan), an archaeologist who dreams of his past life as the Chinese general Mengyi who served under Qin Shi Huang. He agrees to accompany a scientist friend to Dassar India to research on a zero gravity-causing material. It was housed in the tomb of a king and is used by a cult leader for levitation. There, Jack's friend William removes a piece of material which caused the floating tomb to fall down. They also recovered Mengyi's sword.

In this particular scene, Jack the archaeologist videos the inscriptions found on the tomb and is able to read them. He was also against William looting tombs.

The two were pursued by cult followers and Jack was left behind while William was able to escape via a helicopter. The situation was dangerous because the pursuers were throwing rocks at the helicopter so Jack had to be left behind. He jumped off the cliff and his unconscious body was found by an Indian girl who helped him a great deal.

Jack came to know of his past life. As General Mengyi, he once rescued a princess. This princess was to be the concubine of Qin Emperor and while on the way to the palace, her erstwhile fianc é attempted to bring her back. Seeing Mengyi's virtues, the princess fell in love with him after her rescue. Later on, it is revealed that Mengyi was a victim of the manipulative and power-hungry chancellor who wanted him dead.

Jack came face to face with another archaeologist who heads an underground organization. This man aided William so that he could also get Jack. Moreover, he wanted to find the elixir of immortality for himself. In the end, he fell into the abyss when Mengyi's comrade pulled down his leg as he climbed the steps to retrieve the elixir. William died inside, having been swallowed by mercury. Before dying, he told Jack that he is no tomb raider and that he only wanted to continue with his research for the benefit of mankind.

The movie has funny scenes, like the fight scene in a rat gluepaper factory where Jack was shown to be wearing boxer shorts with a smiley on the crotch part. Who would have thought that an archaeologist/ martial artist would wear something like that? Cornelius Holtorf would certainly find this humorous. (Holtorf writes about the relationship between media and archaeologists. He has also written something on the clothes archaeologists wear. I thought this might be of interest to him.)

On the whole, the movie is good. Sure the Indian girl is lovely and really charming, but I just don't get why they have to include India in the story. Maybe they want to have a connection with the country that produced the idea of reincarnation?

The music was also good. I found myself humming to the song days after I watched the film. Another case of LSS (last song syndrome) though technically it's not the last song I heard.