For the love of God, somebody keep the Americans away from Jackie Chan. Even though some of his American productions and co-productions come out quite entertaining (Rush Hour, Shanghai Noon), they never live up to his Hong Kong efforts. The Protector was Jackie's second attempt to break the American market, and unsurprisingly, it failed to win him any new fans.

The film, written by Robert Clouse and originally directed by James Glickenhaus, was apparently awful, featuring feeble fights and some nudity, and Jackie recognised this. This version is Jackie's own recut of the movie, with added Sally Yeh, and more action, but unfortunately, it is still rather poor.

The most striking thing for fans of Chan is the very different hero we are presented with. He has none of his usual charm and humour, and could easily have been replaced with a sock-puppet. In fact, in The Protector, he is quite a vicious little fellow. In the very first action scene, armed robbers take over a bar, but instead of picking up every day objects and using it them as weapons, he meerly blasts a hole in one of the guy's chest. He then chases another to a marina, where he hijacks a boat by threatening to shoot an innocent bystander in the face.

Peppered through The Protector are a few nice stunts, but these scenes lack Chan's usual energy and fluidity. There aren't really enough of them either, and even though later in the film our hero sports a cut on his chin, you can't help but think he did it shaving, rather than doing anything dangerous.

The plot is particularly bland, and it is very easy stop caring what is going on. They go to place A and ask questions, somebody tries to kill them, so they go to place B, where they are told to go to place C, where there is nearly a fight, but there isn't. And so on, until you envy the dead. Even the relationship between Chan and the excellent Danny Aiello is never used to introduce some much needed buddy movie style comedy and character development.

I really should say say something good about The Protector, so I can at least admit that the locations are put to good use, and the cast is quite good, even if none of them get anything good to do. Some of the action towards the end is well choreographed, but painfully short.

As a lover of Jackie Chan, it pains me to say that this is rubbish, and unless you insist on owning every single Chan film, you should avoid this one like you should avoid a cross-eyed and overly-tactile uncle.