I never thought I’d see the day when Jackie Chan (“Supercop”, “The Legend of the Drunken Master”) would be blasting bad guys away with a laser gun. For a long time, Chan has spoken about his desire to move away from martial arts films that require him to do lots of elaborate stunts. Now, is he having a shot at the sci-fi genre with “Bleeding Steel”.

“Bleeding Steel” has a nonsensical story with way too many plot threads for its own good and to summarise is a real challenge but I shall try. Police officer Lin Dong (Chan) has to try to protect his amnesiac daughter (Na-Na OuYang) from a mutant super soldier in search of a deceased scientist’s regeneration formula.

Jackie Chan has put his body through a lot over the years from jumping onto moving vehicles and smashing through countless panes of glass so it’s understandable that he would want to start to slow things down a bit. He still fights better than most people half his age so I cannot really complain. The daughter character is okay. However, the other characters are pretty poor. The thief character Leeson is as annoying as Chris Tucker in the “Rush Hour” films. The villains are fairly forgettable and look like rejects from the Marvel movies.

“Bleeding Steel” has some reasonably satisfying sci-fi/action sequences and the special effects are pretty impressive for the most part (but the parachute scene at the end look terrible). The movie is also very vibrant and fun to look at but the script is just all over the place. There’s an underwhelming battle on top of the Sydney Opera House, a weird and unneeded crossdressing scene and short sequence with a pagan witch and her assistant dwarf to name just a few bizarre moments. It’s not a terrible movie but I certainly cannot recommend it and even most Jackie Chan fans probably will not need to bother with it.