John Lone Movies

A surprise box-office smash spawns this inevitably action-packed buddy comedy follow-up that reunites director Brett Ratner with stars Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. Chan is Chief Inspector Lee of the Royal Hong Kong Police, who travels back to China with his American colleague, Los Angeles detective James Carter (Tucker). The men intend to take some vacation time but are quickly pulled into the case of two murdered U.S. customs agents, who were investigating an illegal counterfeiting scam involving Ricky Tan (John Lone), one of the most powerful Triad gangsters in Asia and an old enemy of Lee's. Lee and Carter are soon embroiled in a dangerous mystery that also involves a sexy secret-service agent (Roselyn Sanchez), a billionaire hotel owner (Alan King), a dangerous femme fatale (Zhang Ziyi) and a finale set in a lavish Las Vegas casino. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

A crime fighter created in the 1930s and popularized in movies, pulp novels, and a radio show starring a young Orson Welles, The Shadow came back to life in 1994 in this slick, well-cast production. Alec Baldwin stars as Lamont Cranston, a murderous opium dealer reformed by a Tibetan mystic, who teaches him how to use his keen mental powers to manipulate others. As penance for his past misdeeds, Cranston masquerades as a degenerate New York City playboy by day and secretly plays the heroic Shadow by night, staving off evildoers with a network of agents and a cab-driving sidekick (Peter Boyle). A greater challenge arrives when Cranston must fight Shiwan Khan (John Lone), the final descendent of Genghis Khan, who has received training from the same Tibetan master who instructed Cranston. Shiwan plans to use atomic weapons to take over New York and then the world. At the same time, Cranston meets socialite Margo Lane (Penelope Ann Miller), and, although he's instantly enamored of her, he discovers that her psychic abilities render his secret identity vulnerable. The Shadow was directed by former music video creator Russell Mulcahy, whose feature film debut Highlander (1986) was a cult classic. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

John Lone, the star of the Oscar-winning The Last Emperor (89), portrays a Chinese revolutionary in Shadow of China. Pursued by the Communists, Lone escapes to Hong Kong, where he builds up a multimillion dollar business enterprise. He hopes to use his international clout to effect changes in Mainland China, but he is defeated by revelations of his earlier underhanded business practices, and by the "dangerous" aspects of his previous political activities. Filmed on location, Shadow of China has its moments of violence, but none so extreme as to detract from the storyline. Also, John Lone proves again how his talents have often been wasted in less ambitious projects. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Last Emperor is the true story of Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi, the last ruler of the Chinese Ching Dynasty. Told in flashback, the film covers the years 1908 to 1967. We first see the three-year-old Pu Yi being installed in the Forbidden City by ruthless, dying dowager Empress Tzu-Hsui (Lisa Lu). Though he'd prefer to lark about like other boys, the infant emperor is cossetted and cajoled into accepting the responsibilities and privileges of his office. In 1912, the young emperor (Tijer Tsou) forced to abdicate when China is declared a republic, is a prisoner in his own palace, "protected" from the outside world. Fascinated by the worldliness of his Scottish tutor (Peter O'Toole), Pu Yi plots an escape from his cocoon by means of marriage. He selects Manchu descendant Wan Jung (Joan Chen), who likewise is anxious to experience the 20th century rather than be locked into the past by tradition. Played as an adult by John Lone, Pu Yi puts into effect several social reforms, and also clears the palace of the corrupt eunuchs who've been shielding him from life. In 1924, an invading warlord expels the denizens of the Forbidden City, allowing Pu Yi to "westernize" himself by embracing popular music and the latest dances as a guest of the Japanese Concession in Tientsin. Six years later, his power all but gone, Pu Yi escapes to Manchuria, where he unwittingly becomes a political pawn for the now-militant Japanese government. Humiliating his faithful wife, Pu Yi falls into bad romantic company, carrying on affairs with a variety of parasitic females. During World War II, the Japanese force Pu Yi to sign a series of documents which endorse their despotic military activities. At war's end, the emperor is taken prisoner by the Russians; while incarcerated, he is forced to fend for himself without servants at his beck and call for the first time. He is finally released in 1959 and displayed publicly as proof of the efficacy of Communist re-education. We last see him in 1967, the year of his death; now employed by the State as a gardener, Pu Yi makes one last visit to the Forbidden City...as a tourist. Bernardo Bertolucci's first film after a six-year self-imposed exile, The Last Emperor was released in two separate versions: the 160-minute theatrical release, and a 4-hour TV miniseries. Lensed on location, the film won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this family drama, the life of a woman and her son are severely disrupted when her estranged husband, who abandoned them thirty years before, returns. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

We first see Asian cave dweller John Lone as he wanders around what seems to be his natural habitat of some 10,000 years ago. Soon we learn that Lone is in a controlled environment in a scientific lab--and that his frozen body was recently discovered during an expedition to the North Pole (hence the nickname "Iceman"). Scientists Lindsay Crouse and Timothy Hutton hope to learn to communicate with Lone, and in so doing discover life was truly like for our neanderthal ancestors. The other, less altruistic scientists want to dissect Lone and analyze his innards. With Hutton's help, Lone escapes, but soon both men realize that there's really no place for "the Iceman" in modern society. Though the settings are convincingly arctic, Iceman was filmed in Manitoba. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Famed producer Dino De Laurentiis tries to steal the thunder from Jaws, then the top-grossing film of all-time, in this big budget remake of King Kong. (De Laurentiis related his tactics to Tom Snyder: "When Jaws dies, nobody cries. When Kong dies, they all cry.") Updated to the 1970s, the original Robert Armstrong character is now Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin), a big-shot oil magnate from Petrox Oil, looking for new petroleum deposits on a recently discovered Pacific island. Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges) is a counter-culture paleontologist, stowing away on Wilson's ship, who warns that they are headed for "Skull Island," where prehistoric monsters still live and roam free. Also along for the ride is Dwan (Jessica Lange, in her film debut), a down-on-her-luck starlet, shipwrecked in the ocean after the sinking of a yacht. She really becomes down-on-her-luck when the group lands on the island and a giant ape, Kong, takes a shine to her. Kong kidnaps her and Dwan takes umbrage when the ape tries to remove her clothes by shouting, "You male chauvinist ape!" But Prescott comes to her aid and rescues her from the gorilla's big mits. Wilson, seeing money to be made on Kong, locks him in the cargo hold of his ship and transports him to New York City. Once there, Kong manages to escape and wreak havoc upon the beleaguered town, before being compelled to climb up the World Trade Center for sanctuary. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi