Bulletproof Monk - Official thread + My review

[Mman]

Didnt suck, just coulda been better.

[Despair]

It could have been WAY better. The comedy bits with CYF were entertaining, but Hunter seriously screwed up action sequences, and shouldnt be let directing in the first place.

[Mman]

Yup, direction did suck. I think the thing needed a bigger budget too.

[Regus]

The fights were really weak, as was the story. I swear I've seen another martial arts film were nazis are after some magical artifact. Operation Condor? I don't remember.

Anyways, at least that girl was pretty hot.

[Despair]

I wonder what this writer was smoking:

"BULLETPROOF MONK has pretty much everything one could want from this subgenre: great stunts, beguiling characters, an accurate self-knowledge worthy of a Buddhist monk and even a surprise ending that’s authentically surprising (and, like the best surprises, set up in plain sight). It does have some CGI shots that sometimes aren’t entirely persuasive in matching the actors to their environments, but this is a relatively minor complaint when the fights and pretty much all other aspects are overall satisfying. MONK appears to be almost everything it aspires to be, which is purely enjoyable action fun in virtually every single moment."

Full review here: http://www.cinescape.com/0/editorial...&sub_id=270342

[ssbomberman]

Saw it this weekend and was utterly disappointed. Even my man Chow seemed tired of his role. It felt more like a made for TV movie than a theatrical one. I have to say that this is up there among Chow's worst films ever...

I guess if anyone else was in it, I'd be fine, but coming off of two decent Hollywood films and a score of great HK films, I expected more.

Action was terrible, the only redeeming quality was that it made us laugh (sometimes on purpose, sometimes because it was so ridiculous). The plot is so full of holes I can't believe someone got paid to write this film.

So yeah, the film isn't the worst I've ever seen, but I had too high of hopes since Chow was in it...

Well, I don't think this will make it into my DVD collection...

Originally posted by amitavc
the fault of almost every western martial arts film is that the director does more kung fu with the camera than you see the actors do on film.

Why such an underexperienced director should even be working with Chow is my question. It's the same with Chan's U.S. movies--either do it yourself or get a veteran HK director to do it right--screw these half-assed U.S. directors that know absolutely nothing about doing action films...

[Despair]

Well, Replacement Killers Antoan Fuqua was a first time director as well, but he handled action sequences very nicely, unlike this hack Paul Hunter.

In BM case everything went wrong, from bad screenplay, to lame action direction, atrocious editing, and at the end we have CYF lost among all this mess.

[ssbomberman]

Originally posted by Despair
Well, Replacement Killers Antoan Fuqua was a first time director as well, but he handled action sequences very nicely, unlike this hack Paul Hunter.

In BM case everything went wrong, from bad screenplay, to lame action direction, atrocious editing, and at the end we have CYF lost among all this mess.

That's a very good point -- Fuqua has turned into an outstanding director, so I guess I shouldn't say all newbie directors, but for the most part these no name directors who have been working with Asian actors have been really dropping the ball...

[cka]

I went and saw it on Sunday. It was pretty decent, nothing to oogle over. I'd say it was an alright flick to check out on the matinee. Just don't expect some kind of epic though; just a standard kung fu hai-yah! movie.

P.S.: That nazi at the end was hilarious.

[Despair]

But thats the thing, its not your regular kung fu flick. Those are at least entertaining and have good fight scenes, where BM was just bad in both areas