THE MYTH (FILM)

'''The Myth''' () is a 2005 Chinese film directed by Stanley Tong.

Contents

Plot

Story of Meng Yi

Story of Jack

Conclusion

Critical reception

Box Office

Cast

External links

Plot

★ Tagline: ''A legend resurrects. An epic hero rises.''

Story of Meng Yi

Meng Yi (played by Jackie Chan) is a brave and loyal general serving the Qin emperor. He is sent to escort the Princess Ok-Soo (Kim Hee-sun) from Korea back to the Qin capital city. Princess Ok-Soo is to be the First Qin Emperor's first concubine in exchange for the Emperor's promise not to invade and conquer her homeland.
On their journey from Korea, she falls into constant dangers, especially from a Korean general who wants both to save her from being a concubine and to marry her. Each time, she is rescued from the general by Meng Yi (in Mandarin his name is pronounced Moun-yi). Eventually, the two fall in love. However Meng Yi hides his feelings since he owes his allegiance to the Qin Emperor and Ok-Soo was supposed to be the Emperor's concubine. Ok-Soo has no such dilemma and openly displays her feelings for Meng Yi.
Later, the Qin Emperor becomes very ill, but succeeds in finding the immortality elixir. But the guards escorting the elixir are ambushed by rebels. Meng Yi pursues the rebels with his troops and wages a fierce battle. He doesn't know that a conspiracy has already been hatched by the prince and prime minister, followed by a coup d'etat burying the emperor alive. Although slain in battle, Meng Yi manages to hand over the elixir to his deputy, Nangong Yan. Sadly, Nangong Yan and Ok-Soo are accused as rebels by the conspirators. As punishment, they are forced to drink the immortality elixir and are then thrown into the great mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, to live imprisoned forever. The Emperor who wanted to live could not live, and Ok-Soo who wanted to die could never die.
Princess Ok-Soo declares that she would wait for Meng Yi to return from his expedition to retrieve the immortality elixir. She is able to do so after taking the elixir along with Nangong Yan, who protects her while awaiting Meng Yi's return. She waits for over two thousand years, living in a floating palace built by the Qin Emperor, until Meng Yi finally returns. The Mausoleum is raided by Jack's colleagues and is being destroyed when Jack asks Ok-Soo to leave with him but refuses, bound by her promise to await Meng Yi's return.

Story of Jack

Jack is the reincarnation of Meng Yi and works as a modern day archaeologist. He often dreams himself as a general, rescuing a far-away princess from danger. One day, William (Tony Leung Ka Fai), a friend of his who works for a secret foundation, asks him to find a rare material as a favor. This rare material has the ability to make a field of zero gravity. His travels take him to the floating tomb of a Dassar King in India, where he finds a sword related to his past life. Apparently, in the past life, Jack as Meng Yi fought a Dassar King over the emperor's concubine Ok-Soo. To honor this fight, the two warriors agree to exchange their swords. The sword Jack finds floating beside the floating coffin of the Dassar King is indeed that of Meng Yi. Jack's friend, William causes some trouble in the tomb by removing a piece of rare material from a statue. This action causes the zero gravity field inside the tomb to collapse, bringing down the floating coffin and sword. When the coffin smashes to the ground, its lid opens and a painting of Ok-Soo is revealed, attached to the lid of the coffin.
Jack is then chased by the sect members and the police. After being left by William, who flees in a helicopter, Jack jumps over a high cliff into a river. He loses consciousness and drifts along the stream until an Indian girl (Mallika Sherawat) rescues him.
The girl takes him to her uncle, a teacher of Indian martial arts, who enlightens him about his past and future. During a sword match with a local warrior, Jack has a vision of the past match between Meng Yi and the Dassar Empire's finest warrior.
After saving Jack from the police, the girl helps him escape back to his home. At home, Jack delivers the sword to China National Museum, as a National Treasure. This angers the leader of secret organization that has been funding Jack and William's adventure in search of the anti-gravitational material. The leader of this shadow organization is the reincarnation of the Korean general, who vowed revenge on Meng Yi.

Conclusion

After extensive research, it is determined that the anti-gravitational material is actually fragments of a meteorite that fell to Earth in the time of Qin Dynasty. Jack and William also discover the exact location of legendary emperor's tomb, which is hidden behind a great waterfall. This massive tomb is believed to contain the largest fragment of meteorite, the power of which is great enough to enable the ancient Chinese to build a floating palace, intended to be the imperial palace for Qin emperor in his afterlife.
Using state-of-the-art equipment, Jack is able to reach the location of the emperor's tomb where he meets Ok-Soo and Yan. The two immortals believe that Jack is Meng Yi and greet him.
At the same time, the party of intruders led by the leader of secret organization enters the tomb. He insists that Ok-Soo relinquish the immortal medicine. Yan refuses the demand by stating that nothing will be taken away from the emperor's tomb. A large aerial fight begins raging between the two parties.
William, trying to collect a sample of the meteorite, pulls out a piece from a statue. His actions break the balance of the zero gravity field and the emperor's tomb collapses in on itself.
As he heads for the exit of the main chamber, Jack asks Ok-Soo to come with him. Ok-Soo refuses his offer since, having heard William call his true name, she now knows that Jack is not Meng Yi. Similar to a classic tragedy, she then flies back to the crumbling castle, where she holds her promise to await the return of the real Meng Yi. She does not know, however, that Jack is actually the reincarnation of Meng Yi. Whatever happens to her ever since then is not mentioned. The scene that Jack and Ok-Soo were holding and flying face to face in the mausoleum was taken from the well-known game Final Fantasy X's scene between Tidus and Yuna.
Just as the villain approaches the fortress, Nangong grabbed the leader from under the steps as the staircase collapsed. In the end, they both perish.
William, who was trapped under a statue hurled at him during the fight, began to drown in the flooding hole. Jack promises that their friendship is forever before William drowns, paying the ultimate price for his previous habits in graverobbing.
At the last moment, Jack escapes through the closing gate, forever leaving his past life. Back at his houseboat, it is revealed that Jack wrote a book out of his experience, which he dedicates to William.

Critical reception

In ''Variety Magazine'', Robert Koehler wrote a generally negative review of the film:

"Resembling a story session where many ideas are brainstormed and few stick, ''The Myth'' messily reps Jackie Chan in epic mode as a contempo archaeologist drawn into a plot to plunder the treasure of the Qin Dynasty's first emperor. As part of a movement in H.K. cinema to return to the ambitious movies of yore, helmer Stanley Tong's multi-period adventure flirts with considerable entertainment on one hand and near self-destruction on the other. Whether Chan's star power will pull in enough international bizbiz is doubtful, though ancillary should flex muscles in most territories."[1]

David Nusair, writing for Reel Film Reviews from the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, was even less impressed:

"That ''The Myth'' eventually turns into an almost interminable experience is a shame, given the light-hearted and genuinely entertaining vibe of the film's opening hour...Fortunately, ''The Myth'' contains several expectedly impressive action sequences - with a fight set within a rat paper factory an obvious highlight - although it's not long before such moments wear out their welcome. This is particularly true of an unbelievably tedious plot development towards the end, which finds all of the film's central characters forced to duke it out inside some kind of an infinite, gravity-defying mausoleum (!) Chan is reportedly looking to get away from some of the sillier films he's been churning out as of late, but ''The Myth'' certainly does not mark a step in the right direction"[2]

Box Office

''The Myth'' was released in Hong Kong on September 23, 2005, and earned a strong HK $6,230,000 in its first three days. It ended its run with HK $17 million, making it the third highest-grossing domestic release in Hong Kong that year.

Cast

★ Jackie Chan – Jack/General Meng Yi

★ Kim Hee-seon – Princess Ok-Soo

★ Tony Leung Ka Fai – William

★ Mallika Sherawat – Indian Princess

★ Patrick Tam Yiu-Man

External links

★ Official site

★

★ Introduction on Jackie Chan's official website

★ Behind the scenes and news timeline

★ Piano Score and Lyrics for Endless Love (The Myth OST)