Wheels on Meals
A 1984 Kung Fu Action Comedy, starring three of the most famous graduates of the Peking Opera House.
Two cousins, David (Yuen Biao) and Thomas (Jackie Chan), run a quirky Chinese food truck in Spain and are incredibly good at martial arts. Moby (Sammo Hung) is an assistant to a Private Detective in serious debt, so he takes over when his boss flees in fear for his life. Moby gets a job to track down a woman and her child from a mysterious stranger, but finds out that he's not the only one looking for her. It turns out that the woman Moby is looking for, Gloria, is in love with David's insane father, and her daughter Sylvia is now full-grown. David and Thomas take a shine to her, and along with Moby (who, it turns out, knows them both) seek to protect Sylvia while trying to figure out what's going on.
Notable for a) being one of the few modern films that unites Yuen Biao, Jackie Chan, and Sammo Hung, and b) an epic fight sequence between Jackie and Benny The Jet. Not to be confused with the nonprofit organization, Meals on Wheels.
- Acrofatic: Sammo Hung's trademark, although Moby still isn't as agile as Thomas or David.
Thomas: Let's climb the trees!
Moby: ...elephants can't climb trees!
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Aside from Sylvia's father and uncle being pretty horrid people, David and Thomas are called out by Moby for thinking of abandoning Sylvia once they find out that Sylvia is the daughter of a count.
- California Doubling: Averted. Much was shot on location in Barcelona, with one key scene taking place at the distinctive Sagrada Família.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Everyone at the sanatorium. Special mention to the guy who thinks he's a clock and isn't far off from actually saying "cuckoo."
- Epiphany Comeback: Thomas gets one of these in climatic fight, switching from serious one on one to a more playful lose style that catches his opponent off guard.
- Flynning: Played straight and subvert in the final sword fight, When David, Thomas and Moby all gang up on Mondale, they initially call out their synchronized attacks until the final one where they call aim at different points, forcing him to surrender.
- Henpecked Husband: Dino, David and Tom's neighbor. In fairness, he's a chronic philanderer, so the wife isn't being entirely unreasonable.
- I Can't Hear You: David and Thomas trick Moby into yelling THE SPANISH ARE ASSHOLES right as Thomas unplugs the music (in a crowded disco full of...).
- Jackie Chan: Along with Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung.
- Loveable Rogue: Moby appears to be one with Thomas and David doing everything they can to avoid getting caught up in him schemes
- Sylvia, pretending to be a hooker so she can rob men and just constantly stealing until half way through the movie.
- Martial Arts and Crafts: Averted; while Tom and David are extremely good skateboarders and presumably decent cooks, neither of these abilities comes into play when they're fighting.
- Product Placement: A brief scene during a car Chase Scene, where they run a old woman off the road toward a hill where her car safely makes a jump over another pair of cars and she gets out with car facing the camera (showing off the Mitsubishi symbol) proclaiming she would have died if she didn't have such a good car.
- Storming the Castle: With no real plan on how to get into Mondale's castle all three try different methods, only Moby's plan worked without him getting caught or deterred initially.
- Spit Take
- Too Dumb to Live: One of the guards at the castle sees a stack of money on the floor near the door that wasn't there before. He gets a steel toe to his chin for his trouble.
- Translation Convention: Everyone in Spain is speaking Chinese. Just go with it.
- Up to Eleven: Thomas and David with their increasingly silly methods of getting into the castle. Where did he even get a crossbow that shoots grappling hooks?!
- Who's on First?: Moby is talking to two insane people. Pretending to tell him a secret, Moby tells one of them, "Don't tell anyone else." The other asks what Moby told him, and he says truthfully, "He told me not to tell anyone else." This starts a fight between the two of them.