Around the World in 80 Days (2004 film)

A 2004 film adaptation of Jules Verne's novel, starring Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan.


 * Actor Allusion: Having been brought to work as a child by his parents at the French embassy in Hong Kong, Jackie Chan does know some French.
 * Adaptation Decay: The 2004 movie wildly diverges from the original. Among other things:
 * Fogg's peers are turned into actual villains.
 * A subplot regarding a stolen Chinese idol is added.
 * Aouda is replaced with a female French artist who joins the trip looking for inspiration.
 * But to balance this, the Frenchman Passepartout is replaced by Jackie Chan.
 * Fogg builds his own flying machine to win the race.
 * Acrofatic: Sammo Hung as Wong Fei Hong, doubling as Actor Allusion as Hung has had a string of roles as famous martial artists that allegedly had a Historical Beauty Update.
 * The Cameo: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Luke and Owen Wilson, Rob Schneider, Kathy Bates, and (thanks to Jackie) Hong Kong actors like Sammo Hung, Daniel Wu, and Karen Mok.
 * Disneyfication: One of the most extreme modern examples from the House of Mouse.  No plot element was too important or too iconic to discard in favor of whatever random slapstick, historical joke, or bizarre twist the scriptwriters could come up with.  There is literally the absolute bare minimum of the original story and characters left needed to justify keeping the title.
 * Dragon Lady: The Chinese villainess, who displays Surprisingly Good English (the actress Karen Mok went to university overseas).
 * Fake Nationality: Chinese actor Jackie Chan as Passepartout (his nationality becomes part of the story).
 * Faux Action Girl: the sadly underused Maggie Q.
 * Historical Fiction: The movie adds cameos by Vincent Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Queen Victoria, Wong Fei Hong and even The Statue of Liberty!
 * The Wright Brothers. Maybe an Indian prince.
 * The Ingenue: Fogg is portrayed a pretty clueless nice guy. He can't even tell that his valet doesn't really speak French!
 * MacGuffin: The jade Buddha.