Even two of China’s most beloved exports, Jackie Chan and an adorable panda cub, cannot save the Chinese-language “Panda Plan 2: The Magical Tribe” from being a bit of a slog. It’s an uneven mix of cartoonish slapstick, poorly choreographed fight scenes, and some last-minute lessons about the importance of unity, encouragement, and the need to change obsolete rules. It has too much violence for younger children and is unlikely to hold the attention of anyone old enough to read the subtitles.
It’s a sequel to 2024’s “Panda Plan,” which had Chan playing a version of himself as an internationally known action star, saving the panda cub named Huhu from some bad guys. In this episode, Chan and the CGI Huhu go through a magical portal to discover a secret indigenous community dressed in low-budget “Avatar”-style beads and feathers. They are led by a Chieftain (Li Ma), who governs according to the rules set forth on ancient stone slabs that are never questioned. According to those tablets, the arrival of Huhu and Chan means that they must ascend the nearby Awe Summit, a mountain with impossibly sheer, near-vertical rocky sides. If they do not succeed, the prophecy says a catastrophe will arrive.
In a quick animated flashback, we learn that one of the ancient rules prohibits any sign of affection, and children are required to be completely independent from age 6. The Chieftain is domineering and emotionless. Her two children are the traumatized Tulu (Yang Yu), who tries to call her “Mom” and win her approval, and the warrior-like Princess Shayi (Yinglu Wang), who is more stoic.
Tulu has three sycophantic buddies who conspire with him to replace Chan on the expedition, so he can earn the respect of his mother and the community. He hires an assassin named Shan (Shan Qiao) to kill Chan, leading to various clownish moments, including a clamshell-like trap in which Shan gets hit on the head. He gets only-in-the-movies amnesia, thinking Chan saved his life, and instantly becomes a devoted friend. Over the course of the film, he gets bonked on the head a few more times, so he can switch back and forth between thinking he’s supposed to kill Chan and becoming his sidekick.
As a performer, Chan is clearly enjoying himself. He remains a wonderfully charismatic screen presence and, as always, he is more comfortable with dialogue in Chinese than English. Unfortunately, the dialogue, at least as presented in the subtitles, is clunky and pedestrian. Many scenes call for characters to have wildly caricatured facial expressions, while others are supposed to be sincere and heartfelt. As the Chieftain and her children have to learn how to hug and say “I love you,” another character is hugged so tightly by his father that his spine is cracked and blood comes out of his mouth, not comic relief as much as an unsettling shift in tone.
The action scenes are also poorly staged. Chan remains lithe and limber, with lightning-quick reactions, but he is over 70 and has broken every bone in his body, many more than once. In the fight scenes of his early years, he used minimal editing to show us that he was as astonishingly proficient in martial arts and gymnastic jumps, dodges, and kicks as his characters. By contrast, here, a confusing variety of scuffles happens simultaneously. We don’t expect real-life Chan to replicate the crazy stunts of “Mr. Nice Guy” or “The Protector,” but the editing seems designed primarily to cut around his limitations (or any stuntmen). Chan’s films used to include post-credits scenes of accidents during stunts. This one has cutesy post-credit scenes with the cast goofing around, and even they go on too long.
