{"id":24320,"date":"2011-12-15T17:35:35","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T17:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.influx.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=24320"},"modified":"2022-06-28T15:14:24","modified_gmt":"2022-06-28T14:14:24","slug":"jackie-chan-evo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/features\/jackie-chan-evo\/","title":{"rendered":"Jackie Chan & Evo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every now and then a star becomes associated with a brand of car, usually by accident. Think the various incarnations of 007 and Aston Martin, of course, and perhaps Steve McQueen with the Ford Mustang. You could probably come up with a bunch of examples.<\/p>\n

But it’s rare in the world of\u00a0showbiz\u00a0to have a situation where a global superstar is associated almost symbiotically with a car. Jackie Chan and Mitsubishi Evo is the only example we can think of.<\/p>\n

The relationship between the Martial Arts movie superstar and the Mitsubishi corporation began at the end of the seventies, when an agreement was drawn up between the Chan empire and the car company to use Mitsubishis exclusively in his films.<\/p>\n

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Of all these, the most blatantly Mitsubishi branded is 1995’s Thunderbolt (below), in which Chan plays a Mitsubishi factory employee who graduates to test driving and then on to, well, saving his sister from the evil embrace of kidnappers, an equally malign bunch of street racers (in Skylines) and generally, the world.<\/p>\n

But in terms of pure Evo-tastic action, 1998’s ‘Who Am I’ has to take the gong. Check out the central car chase scene in which a handcuffed action hero and two lovelies (one of whom is also handcuffed), evade a series of bad guys and cops in the streets of Amsterdam, seeing off an interesting assemblage of vehicles, ranging from an old Rover and a brace of 3-Series. Check the way the Evo itself lays waste to the bad fellahs, and the way the ‘Everyman hero’ image of the car is perfectly illustrated when a skillful stunt driver flicks the chased Evo snugly into a parking spot and thus goes unnoticed by the authorities as they streak by in pursuit. I wonder if this was written into the contract.<\/p>\n