Monday Movie: Little Big Soldier

In the aftermath of a brutal battle, only two survivors crawl out of the heaped bodies: a reluctant conscript (Jackie Chan) and a wounded general (Leehom Wang). Seeing the opportunity to collect a reward, the conscript ties up the general and begins dragging him back to his homeland. But he soon finds he has to deal with not just his ruthless and highly trained captive, but also the back-stabbing relatives who want the general dead.

A labour of love that Jackie Chan has been trying to get into production for two decades, Little Big Soldier is a historical odd-couple comedy that manages to branch tentatively into action, tragedy and character drama. It's not perfect by any means, and to say that it's Chan's best film for years probably tells us more about his recent track record than anything else, but this is clearly a story that its creators believed in and wanted to tell, and that kind of enthusiasm is always infectious.