The first thought that popped in my head was "Rush hour rip-off" Did anyone else think that? Seann William Scott is the smartmouth from the U.S.(Chris tucker's role) and Chow Yun Fat is the fast hands, smart guy (Jackie Chan's role).
shareThat is so true.
shareSomeone else pointed this out elsewhere, but the concept has been around in fiction for quite awhile. Shanghai Knights did it, Remo williams did it, and the books that spawned that movie, namely The Destroyers series, did it more than 3 decades ago. Furthermore, have you ever read Shogun? The point of all this is that, go back as far as you like, and as long as there has been fiction, there has been stories made with the same formulae. It has once been said that there are truly only 36 stories ever written, but I imagine that that is pretty arbitrary in the defintion. Maybe we should look at another literary quote: "There is nothing new under the sun". That one was written a couple of thousand years ago.
Given that the human condition preocupies us with certain things (Shelter, Mating, Defence etc) we will find our intrest is going to be limited to variences on these topics. Martial arts stories, military stories, Rambo; these all give voice to our need to defend ourselves from the outside world. Love stories elaborate on our need to procreate. Every story ever made has been pre-occupied with exactly the same things. So what makes a great story? I would think that it is the nuances of the story. The journey taken, and the way the story is told. In that sense, every novel, every story, every movie is different. That is what allows us to characterize a movie (subjectively) as good or bad, and in many cases gives rise to differences in opinion (since interpetation is subjective).
It is also worthwhile to note that different age categories, races and sex often affect the subjective judgement of a story, as people in different categories are often preoccupied with different things. It's obvious that young males like to see action flicks, military flicks and other violent or blatently sexual themes. Simply put, the young mind is less intrested in subtlety, and more intrested in giving voice to feelings of powerlessness, lack of position or place in the world, and defining their difficulties with the opposite sex. Once older, individuals will begin to be interested in issues of greater subtlety. If a young man is interested in power (Jedi knights anyone?) then an older person will be interested in the realities of powerlessness (which we eventually learn is a true human condition). I suppose this is another topic altogether though...
Genetic_Ecclectic, I couldn't agree more with that very well-written response. One thing I noted is that a lot of people judged the film by the trailer to be a "Rush Hour" rip-off. And while, for those of us who actually saw the film, there were undeniable similarities, you cannot go as far as to call this film a rip-off of "Rush Hour". Each film, while both sharing elements of comedy and drama (almost more of the latter in this film), handled these elements in completely different manners.
You also can't point out the "Rush Hour" similarities without also pointing out the glaring action similarities to "The Matrix" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"; even a few character distinctions from "The Karate Kid" series can be seen here. The relentless scroll search subplot can easily be likened to "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" or "Raiders...", complete with the Nazi bad guy, who almost seems like he came straight from a 007 flick (especially towards the end).
I suppose the point I'm making here is that you can easily draw parallels between films if you think hard enough. Presenting fresh and original material is no longer possible. The key now seems to be presenting material with which we may already be familiar, simply with a fresh take or look on it.