"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Wheels On Meals

WHEELS ON MEALS is the 1984 Hong Kong action classic starring Chinese opera bros for life Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung (also director), fresh off of WINNERS AND SINNERS and PROJECT A. Jackie and Biao star as Thomas and David, dorky cousins who live together in Barcelona, sharing a bedroom that has separate doors right next to each other for no reason other than a visual gag. In the opening we see them getting up, working out and practicing on kung fu dummies, so that when they’re amazing fighters through the rest of it there’s a foundation for it. (But we never see them practice again.)

Sammo plays a guy named Moby, who’s introduced sporting shades and a perm that almost looks like jheri curls. He’s working (without pay) for a sleazy p.i. (Herb Edelman, a.k.a. Dorothy’s ex-husband Stanley on Golden Girls) who leaves town to hide from a gambling debt and leaves Moby in charge, causing him to strut around town dressed like he’s in the “Smooth Criminal” video, whisper-bragging to everyone that he’s “Acting Chairman of Matt’s Detective Agency.” He also takes a case to find a woman from an old photograph (oh my god this could turn into THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO) and it seems like all he really knows how to do is look for some guy named Fatso to ask him about it.

The most dramatic character introduction goes to Thomas and David’s mobile place of business, the Everybody’s Kitchen food truck, which gets what first sounds like a spaghetti western theme, later with catchy vocals that kept reminding me of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.” It comes flying over the horizon toward the camera catching air in slow motion. It’s really a high tech yellow van with two spoilers on top and (for some reason) a monitor with an animated depiction of the way it opens up and folds out into a counter and open kitchen. It reminds me of the high tech car Jackie drives as his unfortunate “Jackie Chan” character in CANNONBALL RUN.

Some day I hope they do a CGI remake where they have big heads and small, plump bodies like on this poster.

There’s a long stretch of this movie that’s more about hijinks and relationships than stunts or fighting, so I’m glad there are a couple good bits right at the beginning here. First, a gag about them having to exit their second floor apartment over a balcony and bouncing off an awning. Second, Thomas (mostly a double) goes around taking and delivering food orders on a skateboard. David throws the board to him and he does a flip and lands on it. Third and best, a classical action movie tangent: a bunch of assholes with leather jackets, sleeveless vests, bandana headbands, giant mohawks and what not roar into the public square on motorcycles, doing wheelies and donuts, jumping over people, scaring away customers and knocking Thomas off his skateboard. So Thomas and David kick them off their bikes, beat them up and otherwise humiliate them in front of an appreciative crowd.

The actual plot starts when they go to visit Yuen’s dad (Paul Chang Chung, ABOVE THE LAW) at a mental home and meet his new girlfriend (Amparo Moreno, THE LIFE OF DAVID GALE), who is accompanied by a beautiful daughter named Sylvia (Lola Forner, PROJECT A, ARMOUR OF GOD) that they nickname “the princess.” They both want to ask her out, but Thomas leaves it to super-nerd David, who blows it.

Later when they’re on the job selling food they see that Sylvia is working as a high class prostitute. Or at least she’s taking clients upstairs. After running off with a rich john’s money she hides in the back of the van and (over Thomas’s objections) they bring her back to the apartment to hide out.

I found Princess Sylvia to be a likable trickster sort of character. All the men cartoonishly lust after her and she keeps taking off with various people’s money, cars, etc. She crashes into Moby’s car in a convertible she stole and gives him the name of the actual owner to pay for his repairs.

Moby turns out to know Thomas and David. He seems to be their friend that they like to make fun of, and there’s a funny bit where they meet him at a club and agree beforehand to say no to everything he says. When that gets awkward they just start talking nonsense to him or pretend they can’t hear him. Of course the mystery turns out to involve Sylvia, and he’s trying to ask them about her, so they’re basically stonewalling his investigation just to fuck with him.

I know Jackie can be broad and muggy, but I think there’s alot of funny stuff in this. Like the serious way he tells Sammo “For my own safety, we better split up.”

Sylvia gets them into trouble. They beat up some dudes they see chasing her, then find out it was because she stole a wallet, and they have to run from the law. Classic Jackie move: the cops grab them and they just wiggle out of their shirts and run away without them. Next we see them getting out of their van each wearing two waist aprons covering their chests, which they don’t change out of before a scene that’s otherwise played totally straight, where David tries to ask Sylvia out and learns her tragic backstory. She ends up working for their food truck business and I’m fond of the ’80s fashion in this portion of the movie which includes her wearing an orange jacket and headband and Moby wearing a yellow painter’s hat.

Of course the movie gets going when henchmen in suits and ties keep coming after the four of them. They get chased in the van and shoot condiments out the back. They hide out in a subterranean homeless encampment that Thomas calls “a headquarters of filth,” according to the translation I saw. They climb into a castle. It’s kind of funny to me that the villain (Jose Sancho) is called “Mondale.” I don’t think it’s a commentary on Walter Mondale, the former U.S. vice president who was then running for president, but maybe his prominence made it seem like a good name for a westerner.

Famously one of the thugs is Benny “The Jet” Urquidez (kickboxing champion and choreographer of ROAD HOUSE), whose fight with Jackie has often been called the best film fight of all time. I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s definitely a great one. There’s one break early on to cut to Sammo in a sword duel (I like that his white opponent is clearly Asian as soon as he puts a fencing mask on), but the bulk of the fight is continuous, just the two of them alone in a large dining room. There’s a chess match quality to it, lots of pausing to look for an opening, to catch their breath, to take off their jackets, to shake off the pain. It’s a little like the also classic duel between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris in WAY OF THE DRAGON (the original Hong Kong martial arts movie filmed on location in Europe).

The music builds and they get sweatier and more wobbly and it culminates in a Tony Jaa-esque flying knee that knocks Benny out a window. He hangs there and he’s panicked but I like that he says “If you have the guts, pull me up and we’ll go another round.” It seems like they both know he doesn’t have it in him to go another round, but it’s understood that he needs to save face.

Though that’s the famous fight it actually ends before Yuen vs. World Karate Champion 1978-1980 Keith Vitali (REVENGE OF THE NINJA, AMERICAN KICKBOXER 1), which isn’t as long but has a great bit where David tires the guy out by making him chase him around the room as he flips over various furniture. They land slumped on a couch and in a love seat, too tired to continue.

I like the international-ness of the movie, centering on these Chinese immigrants in Spain without even ever addressing what brought them there. I mean, their business seems to do okay, David’s dad lives there, it’s a fun neighborhood (despite motorcycle punks), why wouldn’t they want to live there? Apparently the location was chosen partly because it was easier to get permits for the many stunts filmed on location outdoors, and because their growing fame in Hong Kong was making it harder to shoot in public there. There seem to be a whole lot of Chinese people in Barcelona, though. I wonder if that’s accurate, or if it’s because the crew and stunt team were being used as extras?

This is pretty widely known by now, but in case you’re wondering about the title, yes, it was supposed to be called MEALS ON WHEELS. But Golden Harvest pulled a switcheroo because two other movies starting with M (MEGAFORCE and MENAGE A TROIS) had flopped for them. That seems like a weird thing to do, but remember that the last Harry Potter movie was released as PARRY HOTTER AND THE HEATHLY DALLOWS 2ART P, and nobody complained about that. It just seems natural, like a meal with a wheel on it.

From what I can tell, WHEELS is mainly remembered for the weird title and the fight with Benny the Jet. I believe Edgar Wright posted a clip of the fight on Twitter a while back, calling it his favorite, and got a bunch of people excited. And I found a guy called Marten Go a.k.a. “preserveddragons” who liked it enough to make detailed statues of Jackie and Benny:

They look incredible. Click here to get a better look at them on the artist’s post.

I was thinking about making an “Everybody’s Kitchen” logo t-shirt, but I’m a busy man. Maybe later.

Another weird legacy of WHEELS is that in Japan, where it’s called SPARTAN X, they made a tie-in video game under that title. Apparently it doesn’t have the yellow van or anything from the movie, but does have characters named Thomas and Sylvia. It’s historic because it’s considered the first “beat ’em up” or “brawler” game, and its creator Takashi Nishiyama later created one of the most celebrated in the genre, the Street Fighter series.

That’s how video games connect Jackie and WHEELS ON MEALS to Jean-Claude Van Damme (who starred in the first STREET FIGHTER movie). But they also connect Jackie to another beloved Brussels-born film icon: director Agnès Varda! Outside of Japan the Spartan X game is called Kung-Fu Master, which is why that’s the title of a 1988 Varda film that centers on a character who likes playing the arcade game.

The game had two sequels, Vigilante (1988) and Spartan X 2 (1991). In 1997 and 1998 the title was also used for the American comic books Jackie Chan’s Spartan X: The Armour of Heaven (published by Topps) and Jackie Chan’s Spartan X: Hell Bent Hero For Hire (published by Image). Variant covers use stills from ARMOUR OF GOD, so I have a hunch they never really tell us anything more about Thomas and David’s adventures in mobile catering. Fingers crossed for 2 WHEELS 2 MEALS some day.

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 9th, 2019 at 1:06 pm and is filed under Action, Martial Arts, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

37 Responses to “Wheels On Meals”

  1. I love this movie, but I think DRAGONS FOREVER – with mostly the same cast – is better. Quite possibly Jackie’s greatest movie.

  2. I think the Benny “The Jet” fight maybe the best fight scene ever shot.

    Anyone here seen Jackie’s recent films? (KUNG FU YOGA, RAILROAD TIGERS, DRAGON BLADE)

  3. Yeah, this is a good one. Best fight scene ever? Hmmmm it was positioned that way on the Deadliest Art documentary but there were other fights on that doc that I like better.

    People hate Kung Fu Yoga a lot but I thought it was pretty enjoyable. Skiptrace is surprisingly a good time and it’s on US Netflix now.

  4. I used to play the hell out of Kung Fu (as it was known on the NES) so it was a trip to find out that the whole time I was playing as Yuen Biao. Even better, it was developed as a Bruce Lee game based on Game of Death (which explains why it’s set in a pagoda temple), but halfway through they decided to tie it in to Wheels on Meals under its even more unrelated Japanese title, Spartan X.

  5. Not seen this one for years but remember it being a lot of fun. Got to agree with pegsman though. Dragons Forever is definitely the best three brothers (plus Benny) joint.

  6. i fucking love this movie but i’m here with a warning: the fucks at eureka stole the art they used for the blu ray they just put out. the original artist is tony stella (@studiotstella on twitter) and i’d recommend not buying that shit unless they make things right…

  7. I would totally have been down for 2 WHEELS 2 MEALS ten, twenty years ago. Shoot someplace like Vancouver, Copenhagen, or Sydney. Movie begins as story of competing food trucks, but there’s an incorrigible kid that gets into trouble with the local criminal outfit who’s looking for a stolen Zip disk containing the passcodes to the U.S. Treasury computers. Sammo Hung gets promoted to bumbling Interpol liason. Benny Urquidez plays The Bad Guy who Fights Jackie Chan. Movie ends with Jackie freefalling from the edge of space. Did I mention the kid has a hot older sister?

    … These days, I would be less enthused by the prospect of a Three Brothers reunion. They’re just not in the physical condition they once were. Also, I’m sure that either Hollywood or the Chinese government would find a way to botch it. As fun as it is to imagine, I’m glad they’ve resisted temptation to rake in the nostalgia bucks and not churned out some Expendables-type of cash-in where the three of them are hobbling together on screen for a handful of scenes.

  8. CrustaceanLove

    July 9th, 2019 at 4:50 pm

    Holy shit, I had no idea that SPARTAN X/KUNG FU MASTER was a WHEELS ON MEALS tie-in game.

  9. I don’t think the comedy in WHEELS ON MEALS is that bad. Compared to TWINKLE, TWINKLE LUCKY STARS for instance, it’s pretty “international”. TWINKLE has some really good fights too, but the underwear based humor just isn’t funny.

  10. update it looks like eureka reached out to the artist and they have worked something out, which is great cause it seems like a good release otherwise:

    Eureka Entertainment on Twitter

    “@studiotstella ...working with content creators and have always endeavoured that people are fully credited and compensated for their work. Once we were aware of this issue we immediately reached out to Tony and have since come to a conclusion that we're confident is satisfactory to both parties”

  11. Ron – That’s good. I figured that was what happened. When I first discovered his Twitter account I thought he was a veteran poster artist who was showing his old work. It’s very well done.

  12. It sounds like it was just a mix-up and nothing malicious on Eureka’s part. That guy’s posters are so spot-on that they assumed it was actual artwork from the original release. It’s a definitely improvement over the weird chibi artwork they used on a lot of the Lucky Stars movies.

  13. Henry's Swansons my name

    July 10th, 2019 at 5:07 pm

    I can’t believe KUNG FU MASTER is a tie-in with WHEELS ON MEALS!!!! I must have sunk weeks of my life into that game (and VIGILANTE). I did read an article about someone who found the unfinished sequel on a game board and posted the video on Youtube, but as far as I was aware it was never released. Looking up Spartan X 2 leads me to find a Nintendo rom (no arcade rom), which definitely doesn’t look like the KUNG FU MASTER 2 video I saw. Hmmm. But this connection to WHEELS ON MEALS adds another great layer to the story…

  14. There may be some earnest debate and nuanced opinion over which of the Three Brothers films are the best (they all rule, there’s no bad choices really),

    Dragons Forever should not be included in this discussion. Wah Yuen is in it, Corey Yuen co-directed it. This makes it technically a ‘Five’ Brothers film as they were also part of the same performance troupe.

  15. I saw this once a long time ago, the Barcelona setting is cool but also pretty random, it’s funny that the movie never explains why these Chinese guys are living there.

    And yeah, the fights and stunts are just jaw dropping, very glad to here this is on blu ray, I just might go ahead and buy it.

    Also, I knew there was a video game, I remember reading about it in a video game magazine once, but I forgot about the Street Fighter connection.

  16. Oooh, GIFs. Upping your game, Vern. I like it. I guess I need to see this one. I had no idea about Benny The Jet being in this. But I really only know him from GROSSE POINTE BLANK.

  17. If your schedule frees up, I would like to purchase one Everybody’s Kitchen t-shirt, please. Size medium.

  18. Just got the Eureka Blu Ray of this then felt bad when I saw Ron’s first comment up there but I’m glad that it was apparently resolved. I remember being slightly disappointed the first time I saw this a couple of years ago but I think it had just been hyped up too much.

    I rented ACCIDENTAL SPY last week which is a movie I did not even know existed (I thought THE TUXEDO, THE MEDALLION and THE ACCIDENTAL SPY were all the same movie!) and I can’t believe how much I enjoyed it. Lots of fun fights and stunts. It’s nowhere near his best but much better than expected and it’s so great to see a Jackie movie for the first time.

    I was thinking about renting THE MEDALLION even though it looks pretty bad. I got very excited when I saw it ranked in Jackie’s top 15 movies here:

    15 Best Jackie Chan Films, Ranked

    From Rush Hour to Rumble In The Bronx, these are the quintessential Jackie Chan movies for anyone to watch.

    …..until I read the rest of their list! WTF is going on there? Did they just randomly pick 15 movies from his IMDB page? Was it an April Fools prank?

  19. You warned me but I was weak… that click bait listicle broke my brain…

  20. Adkins Undisputed

    December 21st, 2020 at 9:30 am

    The Medallion does have Scott Adkins so it has something going for it

  21. I’m assuming everyone is upset about THE PROTECTOR being robbed of its rightful top spot.

  22. Stay away from THE MEDALION. It’s terrible.

  23. In 2004, the nascent and still struggling fifth British terrestrial Channel forked out to get early broadcast rights to four films that had been in UK Cinemas in 2003 (at the time films didn’t turn up on mainstream TV until 3-4 years Iater). The films were TERMINATOR 3, HALF PAST DEAD, something I don’t recall (maybe SWAT?) and THE MEDALION. I do not think this had the desired effect on their numbers.

    I think I only watched the first 10 minutes of THE MEDALION, but I had already been burned on one eye on the door era Hollywood Jackie with SHANGHAI KNIGHTS, THE TUXEDO and probably something else.

  24. THE MEDALLION has a flying Jackie! What’s not to like?

  25. It also has Claire Forlani playing Stretch Armstrong (I assume from the poister)

  26. That list needs to destroyed and the person who compiled it should be slowly tortured to death by watching Trump shave his nutsack.

    Just a heads up to all those ‘fans’ who love RUSH HOUR and think it’s the greatest JC movie ever? SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!!!

    Jackie’s golden period was from 1982 – 1994 (Project A to Drunken Master 2) and whilst he made some very good films on either side of this period nothing and i mean NOTHING will compare to that 12 year run he had as an Action star.

    Project A, Police Story, Meals on Wheels, Armour of God, Project A 2, Crime Story, Dragons Forever, The Lucky Stars Trilogy, Operation Condor, Twins Dragons, City Hunter.

    All these are top tier Jackie, How can you have a list of top 15 Jackie Chan flicks that encompasses shit like The Medallion? You need your head examining.

  27. Come on, guys. It’s Screenrant. They are really not top tier journalism (or top tier anything).

  28. Guys, I’ve been stewing over this for a few weeks but I’m just going to come out and say it – WHEELS ON MEALS is a fucking terrible movie. Up until the last 20 minutes or so, it’s borderline unwatchable. There’s almost no action, the “comedy” is excruciating to watch, when the rare fight scenes are like 15 seconds long. After about an hour I was like “I blew off my in-laws on Ex-Miss Eve to sit at home alone for *this*?” At least I know for future reference that I can just skip straight to the end but Jesus this was painful. I actually enjoyed THE ACCIDENTAL SPY like a hundred times more – sure it was a bad movie and made no sense, but it had some great fights and stunts throughout so I never really felt bored with it.

  29. HALLSY: Am with you on this. Both WHEELS ON MEALS and DRAGONS FOREVER are salvaged by their amazing final act action set pieces and special kudos to Benny “The Jet” Urquidez for stepping up spectacularly to Jackie’s intricate and complex fight choreography in both movies.

    Everything else is the sort of shit you leave running as you head to the can for a dump and then detour to the kitchen to grab another cold one.

    Am not sure which is worse: The missing heiress turned thief hijinks of WHEELS or the dire romantic shenanigans of DRAGONS.

    Give me something like Jackie’s little seen and little talked about MIRACLES: THE CANTON GODFATHER any day which has very little action but whose comedy scenes around mistaken identities fits more organically into the plot as opposed to the scattershot “let’s throw everything and see what sticks” approach of WHEELS and DRAGONS.

  30. Then again, WHEELS is still a few notches above the unsalvageable CITY HUNTER whose myriad sins include the criminal squandering of the great Richard Norton AND Gary Daniels.

  31. The DRAGONS FOREVER I know and watch a lot is action from start to finish and Jackie’s best movie. So you’re saying there is another one?

  32. Yeah, I think CITY HUNTER is by far my least favourite Jackie movie. The Street Fighter scene made me throw my remote at the tv. I saw DRAGONS FOREVER a long time ago and don’t remember but I think I liked it. Not as much as I liked TWIN DRAGONS though…

  33. Yeah, CITY HUNTER definitely stands negatively out in Chan’s filmography. I don’t mind super silly slapstick, but that one really tested and crossed my limits.

  34. Can’t disagree there. But I still think WHEELS ON MEALS has a lot going for it. A lot of the acrobatics work, and there are some great motorcycle sequences. Humour is of course a very subjective thing, but for me well choreographed slapstick is always entertaining.

  35. I’m disgusted at each and every one of you…

    I guess.

  36. I’m pretty sure I agree with geofreyjar.

    I guess.

Leave a Reply





XHTML: You can use: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>