After Wild Wild West, viewers might be understandably apprehensive about a summer film set in the Old West, the mere sight of a tumbleweed striking fear into the hearts of moviegoers ‘round the world.  But Shanghai Noon will change the way you feel about the recently maligned genre.  Noon not only proves that Jackie Chan’s mainstream hit Rush Hour was no fluke, but also looks likely to establish co-star Owen Wilson as one of Hollywood’s most likeable comedic stars.

Noon’s story is so simplistic that it could have been taken from a video game (in fact, some games are much more complicated).  A Chinese Imperial Guard named Chon Wang (Chan, Rush Hour) is sent to the great western frontier of the United States to rescue a beautiful princess (Lucy Liu, Ally McBeal) from working in a railroad slave camp.  Along the way, he teams up with a struggling outlaw named Roy O'Bannon (Wilson, The Haunting), who is being chased by a Machiavellian U.S. Marshal.

As in any self-respecting buddy film, Chon Wang (pronounced like “John Wayne”) and Roy don’t become friends right off the bat.  As Noon opens, Roy and his gang of inept cowboys are trying to rob the train that is carrying Chon Wang and his fellow Imperial Guardsmen.  It doesn’t go down as planned, and Roy ends up buried up to his neck in the desert, while Chon Wang is separated from his group, which is now light approximately one person.

What transpires from that point is a series of fantastic fighting scenes that display Chan’s physical prowess, plus enough side-splitting one-liners from Wilson to keep even those that abhor martial arts glued to the screen.  There are at least six great fight sequences that, quite frankly, blow away the ones in the highly touted Mission: Impossible 2. And, like many of Chan’s other high-kicking extravaganzas, Noon offers outtakes of flubbed lines and stunts gone bad (hey, that sounds like one of Fox’s May “sweeps” specials!).

As politically incorrect as any film that I can remember (fun is poked at the Chinese, Native Americans, Jews and the irreverent White Man), Noon also boasts a very funny scene where Roy trains Chon Wang to become a cowboy (to Kid Rock’s song of the same name), as well as a very bizarre sequence involving a whorehouse, bubble bath and a Chinese drinking game, the latter of which I was hoping would result in some intoxicated fighting (a la Chan’s wickedly cool Drunken Master 2), but unfortunately that dream was never realized.

Noon is the directorial debut of Tom Dey and was written by Miles Millar and Alfred Gough of Lethal Weapon 4 fame.  Dey’s direction and the co-written script skillfully blend the important elements of action and comedy, but Wilson’s deadpan drawl makes the whole picture worthwhile.  I couldn't help but wonder how much creative input he had in his own lines, which seem as well written as either of the finely crafted screenplays the actor has penned (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore).

1:42 - for action violence, some drug humor and mild adult language