Years ago I got Mr Nice Guy on DVD. It’s the Jackie Chan movie that has a lot of scenes filmed around central Melbourne.
Given that apart from Jackie himself, I only recognised one actor (Barry Otto), that most of the acting is pretty bad, and the movie is basically all fight scenes, my conclusion was that they hired mostly stuntmen for all the characters. Why would you bother getting real actors?
The plot is wafer-thin, seemingly designed primarily to link together the fight scenes. As a reviewer on IMDB said “‘Mr Nice Guy’ might be a contender for the thinnest plot in the universe prize”.
In this first clip you’ll see Jackie (in this movie playing a chef, also called Jackie, who meets a journalist who has a tape incriminating a gang of suited drug pushers) running around Melbourne Central shopping centre. It was filmed in 1995 (there’s a clue in the second clip), and you get to see him slide down what was the main escalator entrance to the station from Swanston Street until it was removed in 2004.
In this scene straight afterwards, our hero, having just left Melbourne Central, somehow finds himself on Swanston Street near Collins Street, and hijacks a horse and carriage. A few familiar sights are in there, including Melbourne Sports Depot (now EB Games), the Town Hall, the Manchester Unity Building, quite a few trams in the Met colours and the old Batman Records, Off Ya Tree, and Academic & General bookshop. The geography goes screwy again, with a turn into Lonsdale Street becoming Little Bourke Street near Hardware Lane, and then becoming Flinders Lane at the back of St Paul’s and next to the City Square.
Quite entertaining, though mostly for the familiar sights.
Note: In both cases you can improve the picture quality by choosing 480p when playing. Also check out an earlier scene filmed at the Showgrounds.
3 replies on “Mr Nice Guy”
There was a cafe on the corner of Hardware Lane and Lt Bourke that for sometime had pictures of Jackie as some scenes were filmed near there, and I think he signed one of the walls. It’s since changed ownership and I don’t think the memorabilia is there any more. Best thing about that cafe was something like a $4 breakfast.
I still want to meet the person who redesigned Melbourne Central into the Rabbit Warren that it is and beat them aroudn the head. What a monumental frak up that place is especially if you need to get to the station in a hurry from the Swanston Street end.
“Most of the acting is pretty bad, and the movie is basically all fight scenes, my conclusion was that they hired mostly stuntmen for all the characters. Why would you bother getting real actors?
The plot is wafer-thin, seemingly designed primarily to link together the fight scenes. As a reviewer on IMDB said “‘Mr Nice Guy’ might be a contender for the thinnest plot in the universe prize”.”
Replace the word “fight” with “sex” and “stuntmen” with “adult entertainers”, and your description could be about a porno movie!!!!! Even the title sounds like a porno!!
Hi there! I’m looking for people with interesting facts and figures on Jackie Chan in Melbourne. I’ll be in Melb on the 12-15 September, 2010 and would love to meet up with any JC fans or critics.