Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. It’s Animation Bang time. When you think of martial artists who are the first people that come to your mind? For me it’s Bruce Lee, Jet Li, and of course Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan, Jackie Chan, Jackie Chan. Hands down one of the greatest action/comedy movie stars to ever appear on the big screen. A man who wowed us with his amazing stunts, sense of humor, and incredible martial art skills. He was like an action hero come to life. During the late 90s and early 2000s this guy was everywhere appearing in action/comedy movies and in our homes on Saturday morning with his hit cartoon series The Jackie Chan Adventures. Yeah, Jackie Chan created his own cartoon for the WB back in the day. The show ran from 2000 to 2005 and was created and developed by John Rogers and Jackie Chan himself who based the show after some of his works. The show is basically what it says it is it’s the fictionalized adventures of Jackie Chan and his family as they battle against the forces of evil whether they be human or non-human. Let’s take a look at this show and see how well Jackie’s animated project was. This is The Jackie Chan Adventures.
Plot
In the show Jackie is an amateur archeologist who knows martial arts. He prefers to live the quiet life doing his work in peace while dealing with his cranky uncle Uncle at his antique shop. One day his peaceful days change when he’s asked to look after his niece from Hong Kong, Jade and he finds a shield carrying a magical talisman with unbelievable powers. An underground crime organization known as the Dark Hand want the talisman to awaken a demon known as Shendu who promises them treasures beyond their imagination. When Jackie refuses to give the shield up the Dark Hand kidnaps Uncle and he rescues Uncle from them keeping the talisman out of their hands. Uncle reveals that there are 11 more talismans in the world each one holding a different power that the Dark Hand wants. Jackie and his family must now find and secure all the talismans before the Dark Hand gets them and uses them to destroy the world.
Main Characters
The main characters of the show is the Chan family who Jackie admits are based off of people he knows in real life.
Jackie Chan voiced by James Sie
An amateur archeologist who lives in San Francisco with Uncle. Much like his real-life counterpart Jackie is a skilled martial artist who is both agile and smart. Despite being a skilled martial artist Jackie is a pacifist who doesn’t enjoy fighting and would much rather talk things out rather than resort to violence. In the show he does a lot of crazy stunts just like in real life such as fighting on rooftops, jumping off of buildings, and doing parktour.
Jade Chan voiced by Stacie Chan
Jackie’s energetic 12-year old niece who Jackie goes on record saying he based the character off of a combination of his nieces in real life. Despite living in Hong Kong her whole life Jade is already Americanized speaking perfect English and understanding the customs of America. She’s adventurous, cunning, clever, and surprisingly wise for her age. Unlike Jackie who seeks a peaceful life, Jade actually enjoys the adventurous life and strives to be a hero just like Jackie. Kicking butt and taking names. She also knows kung-fu just like Jackie however she’s not as skilled as him. Many people like to call Jade Gosalyn 2.0 because her personality and character is quite similar to Gosalyn and yes I have to admit Jade did come across as a second Gosalyn. She is fierce, dependent, wise for her age, courageous and is not afraid to face danger.
Uncle Chan voiced by Sab Shimono
Often considered the funniest character in the show and known for his famous catchphrases: “one more thing” and “magic must defeat magic”, Uncle is the uncle of Jackie and great uncle of Jade in the show. He owns an antique shop and in the first season really had no purpose except being the plot driver revealing the powers of the talismans and serving as a second guardian for Jade when Jackie isn’t around. After the first season however is when Uncle really started to take off as a character. He reveals that he’s a chi wizard who knows a number of magic spells and can perform really high level spells as well. Just like Jackie he too knows Kung-Fu in fact in one episode it gets revealed that he’s the one who trained Jackie Kung-Fu. Once old age set in Uncle learned a new form of fighting style that would allow him to knock out opponents using nerve points. Jackie goes on record saying he based Uncle off of his father and agent. A running joke in the series is that no one in Jackie’s family know how Uncle is related to them.
Tohru voiced by Noah Nelson
A large man of Japanese descent who originally worked for the Dark Hand. At the end of season 1 he changes side and becomes Uncle’s apprentice. Despite his large size and aggressive demeanor, Tohru is actually a very gentle spirit caring and remaining loyal to those he follows. An example of this is his relationship with Jade and Uncle. In the show Tohru develops a big brother/little sister relationship with Jade being very protective of her and even at one point almost sacrificing his life to save her. With Uncle he develops a student/sensei relationship listening to Uncle’s words, helping him in his chi spells, and once again being very protective of Uncle when danger arrives. A running gag in the show is that Tohru doesn’t like fish which is ironic because fish is considered one of Japan’s prime diets. Jackie goes on record saying Tohru is based off a member from his stunt team.
The villains
During its 5 season run the Jackie Chan Adventures had a number of villains. For this section I’ll just name the villains from the first season and get into the other villains in the Seasons’ section.
Valmont
A man from British decent who is the leader of the Dark Hand. He is a skilled criminal mastermind as well as a martial arts expert.
The Enforcers
The comedic henchmen who work under Valmont and later work for all the major villains in the show in later seasons. Originally Tohru was part of the Enforcers but at the end of the first season left the group of his own accord. The group mainly consist of four people. The first is Finn a 70s fanatic who is probably the most intelligent of the enforcers. He’s from Irish descent. The second is Ratso a nerdy strongman who acts somewhat childish and dimwitted but also serves as the heart of the team. Third is Chow a man from Chinese descent who is the youngest member of the group and is constantly wearing sunglasses. The final member is Hak Foo the muscle of the group who was the first person in the series to ever beat Jackie fairly in a one on one fight. He is a skilled martial artist who knows all kinds of crazy moves which he shouts out at will and has an obsession with gaining power.
Friends and Allies
In the show besides Tohru the Chans had a number of allies and friends helping them out.
Captain Black
The leader of Section 13 who aids the Chans in their fight against the Dark Hand and the forces of darkness. The show says that he and Jackie are longtime friends but they never reveal how they met or how they became friends. At first he doesn’t believe in the whole magic stuff but once he sees Shendu he changes his mind which makes his superiors believe that he’s crazy. According to Uncle, Black has more good chi in him than the average person.
El Toro Fuerte
A Mexican masked wrestler who was the original holder of the Ox talisman but he gives it up to prove his skills are legit. Because he is a masked wrestler El Toro never removes his mask.
Paco
El Toro’s number one fan who remains loyal to El Toro throughout the series becoming his sidekick and student. He’s about the same age as Jade and it’s hinted to have a crush on her.
Viper
A female thief who accidently steals the snake talisman from Jackie. After her run in with Jackie and the Dark Hand she gives up her life of crime and becomes a security consultant as well as an ally of the Chans. Jade idolizes her believing she be a cool aunt while Jackie believes she’s a bad influence on Jade but over the course of the series begins to warm up to her.
The Seasons
The Jackie Chan Adventures ran for a good 5 years and had five seasons total. Each one had a different theme to them and villain. The first season is known as the 12 talismans. In the season The Chans must find all 12 talismans of Shendu before the Dark Hand finds them and revives Shendu. Each talisman is represented by an animal from the Chinese zodiac and they all have different powers. For example the Ox gives you super strength, the rabbit super speed, the snake turns you invincible, and my favorite the monkey turns you into any animal you want. However a few of the talismans seem repetitive to me. Like the dragon and pig talisman are roughly the same if you ask me. The dragon talisman gives you fire blasting powers and the pig gives you heat beam eyes. Don’t those two powers seem roughly the same to anyone else besides me? Well despite that the season was still good as it really set the tone for the show. The fight scenes were great and were based off of actual scenes from Jackie’s movies. The humor and comedy were good and the characters all worked off each other well. Throughout the season we see all the powers of the talisman with the Chans securing 10 while the Dark Hand only secured 2. However in the two part finale of the season the tiger talisman (the yin-yang talisman) splits Jackie into two. One part being his good half the other part being his bad half. The bad half steals all of the talisman from Section 13 and gives them to the Dark Hand allowing Valmont to release Shendu from his statue imprisonment and travel to Hong Kong where he plans to release his demon army and destroy all of Hong Kong. Jackie takes on Shendu and with the help of Jade and a magic chi potion from Uncle they manage to remove the rat talisman (gives life to inanimate objects) and return Shendu to a statue where Jade uses the dragon talisman to destroy Shendu. The season ends with Tohru becoming a good guy and working in the antique shop with Uncle and Jade’s parents allowing her to stay in America.
Season 2 is known as the Demon Portals. In this season we find out that Shendu was one of eight powerful demon chi sorcerers who once ruled the world. One by one the demons were defeated and sealed in another dimension where they’ve been all this time. After Shendu’s body was destroyed last season his spirit gets sent to the dimension where his demon brothers and sisters are upset in his failure to rescue them. In a last-ditch effort to save himself he convinces them to allow him to escape so that he can possess someone, find their demon portals, and set them free. They agree to let him go however they put a spell on him that forces him to stay in the body he possesses. Shendu tries to possess Jackie but instead possesses Valmont (and it is hilarious seeing the two argue with each other). This season is longest out of all the seasons having a total of 39 episodes with a majority of those episodes being filler episodes as a way to establish new villains of the show for the future and a few of these episodes were meant for season 1 but just didn’t have time to air. In the season the Chans and Tohru travel the world trying to stop Shendu and the Dark Hand from opening the portals but failing each time and having to cast a chi spell to reseal the demons and close their portal forever. In the end they seal all the demon portals and even manage to seal Shendu back into the dimension using his gate. The demons all have cool designs and are represented by the different elements in the world. My favorite demon had to be Tso Lan the Moon demon. He has a very cool design. The others demons are all ragtag and barbaric while Tso Lan dresses quite proudly like a Chinese emperor and has a calm personality as opposed to the other demons. He’s also considered to be the strongest out of all the demons as he has the power to control gravity and a master of telekinesis. I like how he doesn’t seem all that intimidating like the others but in truth he’s probably the most dangerous demon as his plan when he was released was to move the moon which would have mess up the planet big time.
The third season was called the Talisman-Powered Animals. This season introduced a new main villain Daolon Wong a dark chi wizard who appeared in season 2’s filler episodes as a new villain for the show. He was a hit as everyone seemed to like him mostly because he was the anti-uncle an evil chi wizard who was skilled in chi magic just like Uncle and was unbelievably evil (I mean the guy tried to suck the chi out of Santa for crying out loud. That’s pretty messed up). At the start of the season Wong and the Dark Hand both simultaneously attack Section 13 trying to steal the talismans. In an attempt to stop them Jackie uses a powerful laser to try the talismans scattering their powers around the world restarting the talisman hunt all over again. Now Jackie and the others must find the noble animals of the Chinese zodiac before Wong does and steal their powers. Wong also turns the Enforcers into dark chi warriors to aid him in his search for the animals. This season was my second favorite season out of all the seasons and was hands down the funniest season in my opinion. The enforcers as the dark chi warriors are hilarious as they just don’t fit the description and combining them with Daolon Wong was even funnier as they work off each other well. Daolon Wong was a good mix of comedy and seriousness and he was a good rival for Uncle to face off against. Jackie and the others find and secure all of the animals except for the dragon since dragons no longer exist in the world. Yeah I know there’s the Komodo dragon but still those things are dangerous and untamable it wouldn’t have worked out for the show. But Daolon Wong finds the dragon and it’s Shendu who promises to give him the powers of the dragon talisman as long as Daolon Wong creates him a new body. Daolon Wong agrees to do this and creates Shendu a new body but if you know Shendu you know he’s not one to keep his promises. He double crosses Daolon Wong and goes for the animals himself. While Jackie and Jade try to keep the animals away from Shendu, Uncle tries to uncover the original spell that sealed Shendu long ago. Uncle fails in his attempt to find the spell so he goes to the next person who will have it Daolon Wong. Uncle seals away his dark chi powers and forces him to reveal the original spell. Once Uncle has the original spell he performs the spell on Shendu turning him back into a statue and creating all new talismans. Shendu is locked away in Section 13 and the Enforcers along with Daolon Wong are locked away in prison.
Season 4 was known as the Oni Masks and was my favorite season out of all the seasons. This season focuses on the Shadowkahn a group of mysterious demon ninjas who come from the shadows and were some of the only creatures in the show who could actually put up a fight against Jackie. This season was building up since the beginning of the show. In season 1 Shendu was able to summon them at will, in season 2 Jade tattooed the Shadowkahn mark on her leg and gained the power to summon them as well except the power slowly began to corrupt her and she transformed in the Shadow Queen, and in season 3 Daolon Wong summons them after he’s fed up with the Enforcers constant failure. They really did a good job keeping these guys a mystery and slowly building them up throughout the seasons. In the season we find out that the Shadowkahn aren’t from Chinese mythology but instead Japanese mythology. They’re the loyal servants of Tarakudo, Lord of all Oni and King of the Shadowkahn. When in prison Daolon Wong tries to summon the Shadowkahn to free him and the Enforcers from prison but instead summons Tarakudo who frees the Enforcers from prison and helps them find the Oni Mask masks that contain the powers of his generals who each had the power to summon Shadowkahn all of whom come from different tribes. There are nine mask total and if they all fall into the wrong hands it’ll unleash a hoard of shadows which will cover the world in darkness forever. So the chase is on to find the Oni Mask and each time the Chans find a mask someone accidently puts it on, gets corrupted by the power of the mask, and summons a different tribe of the Shadowkahn for Jackie to fight. Eventually the Chans find all the mask and lock them up in Section 13 which was a bad idea. It turns out that bringing all the mask together was the wrong move as warned on the tablet detailing the history of the oni. When the mask are bought together they shatter and release the 9 oni generals who were trapped inside the mask. The generals begin to summon their Shadowkahn which slowly begin to take over the world. The Chans and their allies try to stop the generals but they get captured and locked away in Section 13. Using magical hanafuda cards the group discovers that there’s a 10th mask that was meant to seal Tarakudo but it’s hidden in the shadow world. Tohru enters the shadow world where he retrieves the mask but just like Jade gets corrupted by the mask. Using Tohru’s hair Uncle casts a chi spell which returns Tarakudo back to human form and Jade uses the mask to seal him along with his generals and Shadowkahn thus saving the world once again. Like I said before this season was my favorite season. For starters the Shadowkahn are all cool, the designs and creativity put into each tribe was great. Tarakudo is also a good villain. Just like Daolon Wong he’s the right mix of comedy and seriousness. He’s also probably the friendliest person the Enforcers worked for. Whenever they failed he never got mad or yelled at them he just shrugged it off knowing that somebody will put the mask on soon and when they do that’s when he strikes. This guy knew how to corrupt people and everyone. Even Captain Black who accidently puts the mask on gets corrupted by Tarakudo. This season also served as a breakout season for Tohru. Being the only one who comes from Japan and has any knowledge about oni (which he admit terrifies him because of the stories he was told when he was a child) he takes the lead this season developing and creating chi spells to fight the oni and even conquers his fear of oni by traveling into the shadow world and retrieving Tarakudo’s mask.
The fifth and final season is known as the Demon Powers and in my opinion this was the weakest out of all the seasons. The main villain this season is Shendu’s son Drago. Much like Daolon Wong the show introduced Drago in earlier episodes hoping he’ll catch on like Wong. Unfortunately Drago didn’t catch on because there really wasn’t much to his personality or character other than being Shendu’s son who wanted to be better than his dad and succeed where his dad failed. He also had bad one liners that made you cringe whenever you heard them. Another thing that made this season bad was that they got rid of the Enforcers who next to Uncle were the funniest characters in the show. Instead they replaced the Enforcers with 3 new baddies called Strikemaster Ice and his cohorts DJ Fist and MC Cobra. The best way to describe these guys is imagine what would happen if you combined Vanilla Ice with Eminem, split them into three people, taught them karate, and gave them that extreme gimmick the 90s tried to force down our throats when we were kids. You get these guys and yes they are annoying. In the season Drago escapes Section 13 after being previously captured in an earlier episode. Drago is after cursed objects which contain demon chi from Shendu’s siblings so that he can gain all of their power and rule the world. The Chans find and capture the demon chi even going as far as capturing Drago’s chi rendering him powerless. However, Drago catches Jackie, Uncle, and Captain Black and threatens to kill them unless Jade and Tohru hand over the demon chi. They agree to do it but the deal goes south with Ice and his posse backstabbing Drago and try to take the demon chi themselves but ultimately fail when Drago absorbs the chi himself and becomes a super powerful demon. Drago begins unleashing his demon army upon the world forcing Uncle to release Shendu in order to fight his son but even that fails. Since they can’t defeat Drago, Uncle and Tohru use a deus ex machina spell which sends him and Shendu into another dimension where they can’t escape bringing the series to an end.
Favorite Episodes
To be honest I liked all the episodes. They had good story, action, comedy, and character development. But if I had to name a few of my favorites it would be these episodes. For season one it’s the two part finale. In the first part we get two Jackies one good and one bad. The good one is wimpy and polite while the bad one is rude and enjoys fighting. When Jade stands up to the bad Jackie he tries to hit her but gets stopped by the good Jackie showing us that a good person can have a little evil in them and bad person can have a little good in them. The two Jackies fight each other in a pretty cool fight scene but stop when Jade gets kidnapped by the Dark Hand so they raid their headquarters fighting the Enforcers and Shadowkahn but it’s too late as Valmont has awakened Shendu and Jackie returns back to one Jackie. In the second half they travel to Hong Kong to fight Shendu where we get the biggest fight in the series at this point.
For the second season there’s an episode where the Dark Hand gets themselves arrested on purpose in order to go to prison and unleash a demon so Jackie goes undercover as a prisoner and tries to infiltrate their circle but accidently opens the demon portal himself. There are a lot of funny moments in the episode including a very sad moment where Ratso finds out that the prisoner he befriended turned out to be his enemy this whole time and is heartbroken by it. It’s a short scene but it shows that if the circumstances were different there’s a chance that Ratso and Jackie could have been good friends. I also liked the 2 part special Demon World. After the Chans and Tohru seal all the demons they relax in Hong Kong with Jade’s family and as Shendu is getting tortured by his siblings he begs them for one more chance to make everything right and they give it to him. He returns to the human world and this time possesses Jackie and travels to Australia. His plan, is to rewrite the Book of Ages a very powerful book that records history as it goes. Shendu rewrites the book to where he and his siblings rule the world. Jackie and everyone else are their loyal servants and slaves and the only person who still has their memories of the real is Jade who through an act of luck managed to rip her section out of the book as Shendu was rewriting it. Jade gets the help of Jackie and Uncle to steal a few of Shendu’s talismans and escape where they reunite with their allies and seal a few demons along the way as they head toward the Book of Ages to restore history. They fight Shendu and the remaining demons at the Book of Ages temple, reseal them all, and restore history. This 2 part special honestly could have been a whole season of them forming an army to fight back against the demons while sealing them.
The third season as I said before was the funniest season. Any episode involving finding the animals was an episode I liked and enjoyed. The same can be said for the fourth season. Any episode that involved finding the Oni Masks was an episode I liked. The fifth season didn’t really have an episode I liked. Personally, I felt the ending could have been done better. On a side note I like how some of the episodes incorporated Jackie’s real life. For example in one episode the Chans are in Hollywood trying to seal a demon portal and Jade tries to make Jackie a movie star by saying he does his own stunts. Which is true, in all of his movies Jackie does his own stunts. In another episode Jackie believes that one of the performers of an opera group might be using his skills to rob banks. Before becoming a successful movie star Jackie used to study opera and perform with a traveling troupe called Seven Little Fortunes. His master said that while Jackie wasn’t the best performer he was the naughtiest.
Themes
The show incorporated a lot of themes from Chinese philosophers and from Jackie’s movies. If you’re a fan of Jackie’s movies you’ll more than likely see them in the show.
Does this count as Amerime
I say yes. You can tell the animators for this show were heavily inspired by anime. A lot of facial expressions can be seen in anime and art style does look Japanese but not too Japanese as to confuse viewers at the time.
Does it deserve another season
That’s a tough question. A part of me would like to see the show come back and wrap up everything nicely but another part of me could tell that the show was running its course near the final season and they tried to wrap up everything as nicely as they could. It’s a tough call but I say no.
Final Thoughts
The Jackie Chan Adventures was honestly one of the best shows in the early 2000s. It had a good mix of comedy, action and adventure, good characters who you came to like, and well thought out stories and themes each episode. As much as I make fun of the 5th season I don’t think it was entirely bad just not as strong or well thought out as the previous seasons. While there really wasn’t that much character development in the series outside of Tohru I still like these characters and even to this day I can still go back and watch the show and still get a good laugh out of watching it.
Final Score
The final score for Jackie Chan Adventures is 7.5/10. If you’re a fan of Jackie Chan or like action/comedy cartoons than give this show a watch as it has everything you’ll like. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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