Why did Eddie's resurrection take so much longer?

This occurred to me while watching the (so-bad-it's-good) Jackie Chan film The Medallion. Partway through the film, Chan's character Eddie Yang dies in the process of saving the "chosen one", Jai. In gratitude, Jai uses the titular medallion to resurrect Eddie, granting him superhuman strength and immortality. However, rather than resurrecting immediately, Eddie remains seemingly dead, his body is taken to the morgue, Nicole and Watson say their final goodbyes to him... and then his resurrected self appears.

Later in the film, Snakehead kills himself with poison and forces Jai to resurrect him with the medallion. The revived Snakehead appears within about five seconds.

Similarly, when Eddie uses the medallion to resurrect Nicole at the end of the film, she returns within a matter of seconds.

Eddie's resurrection, however, seems to have taken at least a couple of hours (it's hard to know how long exactly). Out-of-universe, I imagine this was done for narrative purposes: dragging out the drama of his death, and timing his resurrection for maximum comic effect. But is there an in-universe explanation as to why Eddie's resurrection took so much longer?

plot-explanation the-medallion

Best Answer

After thinking about it some more, I've come up with my own explanation which, while speculative, matches up with what we see in the film:

The longer you're dead before the Medallion is used, the longer it takes for you to resurrect.

First, we see Eddie drown in the shipping container. We don't know how long it takes for the container to be fished out of the harbour, but I'd guesstimate an hour or two. It takes roughly another hour or two for the Medallion's effects to take hold, during which time his body is taken to the morgue.

Second, we see Snakehead kill himself with poison specifically so Jai can resurrect him. The Medallion is used on him more-or-less instantly, and the effect is similarly instant.

Finally, at the end of the movie,

Nicole is thrown off a ledge to her death. Eddie revives her with the Medallion only a few minutes later and her resurrection takes less than thirty seconds.

I don't believe there's a canon answer (this isn't the best-written film in the world, to be perfectly honest), but the events of the film suggest that the longer you've been dead for, the longer it takes the Medallion to bring you back.