The Spy Next Door Starring Jackie Chan

We took Kai and Shen to their very first* big screen movie experience today. We saw Jackie Chan in The Spy Next Door, in which Jackie plays Bob Ho, a retired international spy who is called back for one last job while he’s babysitting his next-door-neighbor’s three children. I think it is more than fair to say that Kai and Shen were VERY excited about getting to go see this. While I am writing they are busy acting out fight scenes with one another, and while they always love rough house play a lot, the energy level they are exhibiting right now has definitely been kicked up a notch!

The movie was about what I expected, it is definitely aimed at kids. I knew this going in, so I wasn’t expecting much for the adults. I got my enjoyment from watching the boys see the movie.

The opening credits play over a montage of action scenes from earlier Jackie Chan movies set to the song Secret Agent Man. The immediate gratification of seeing their man in action was immensely satisfying, but Kai found the following scenes that set up the plot and characters a bit tedious, “When is the Kung Fu?!” he whined to me after about the 10 minute mark. Fortunately he didn’t have to wait long. While Jackie had plenty of hi-tech spy gadgets, there were lots of classic examples of him using his environment and found objects (including a bike, ladder, folding chairs, frying pans and a refrigerator) in humorous ways to take down the bad guys.

A couple of things in the movie that Tina and I found quite touching were when Jackie’s character sang Chinese lullabies to put the 4 year old girl to bed, and when he explained to the 13 year old half sister who felt she didn’t belong, that he had been an orphan and had grown up in a group home. He told her that family wasn’t about whose blood you had, but who loved you.

The Spy Next Door is far from being a timeless classic, but Shen and Kai were thrilled with it so we were very glad to have taken them to see it. We were also presently surprised to see a preview for Jackie Chan’s next movie, a remake of The Karate Kid with Will Smith’s son, Jaden starred in The Pursuit of Happyness with his father. Interestingly this remake is set partially in China and the "Karate Kid" learns Kung Fu.



I have written before about our family’s fondness of Jackie Chan, who has a special place in our hearts because he built an entire new children's building at Kai's orphanage in Baoding, China. After we wrote and thanked him he sent Kai an autographed picture that now hangs in the boys' room. Yep, bonafide Jackie Chan fans in this house! To read what I wrote about that four years ago CLICK HERE.

*we took Kai to see Curious George in the theater four years ago when he was three, but he doesn’t really remember it.