Customer Reviews

Bulletproof Monk

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I got this movie for free in a buy two get one free type of deal (couldn't find a third I really wanted, so took a shot with this).
First off, the dialogue is so bad it is almost painful to listen too. Granted, I expected as much and, for the most part, got the movie because I heard it had good action scenes. Wrong. The action scenes were mediocre at best, and they seemed few and far between as well. (I don't know why they picture Monk with guns on the cover anyway. He uses them once and spends the majority of his time running away rather than fighting.)

To sum up, I'm quite frankly embarassed to have this movie in my possession. Maybe I'll donate to the local library so other people curious about this trash may only have to waste their time and not their money as well.

After watching the trailer, seeing Chow-Yun Fat with twin desert eagles, I was thinking, Chow-Yun fat was bringing his good ol' gun blazin' action to USA films. Even though it was PG-13, I was thinking it might be a movie like the transporter, only better.

But I was wrong! Chow-Yun Fat is definitly losing it or sellin-out!! He only used the guns once(And didn't kill anybody)!!! WTF!!!! I was hoping I could get a laugh or two out of it with Sean-William Scoot in it, but he was hardly funny!! The only time I laughed at this movie, was when I realized how much this film made a fool out of me!! To waste money to watch it!

What ever happened to Chow-Yun fat in the good ol' days, like where he was a stright up killer, in the Killer, and a criminal killing machine in hard boiled!!? I just wish that one day, Chow-Yun fat and John-Woo(Who's slipping too, but no as bad as Chow!) can colaborate again, and bring some of the good ol' days to the future with justice.

Anyway, if you want a action movie,get Hard Boiled, the Killer, Face off, or Bad Boys 1&2, but not this; if you want a comedy movie go get Clerks, Road Trip, Billy Madison, or Friday, but not this, if you want a good fantasy, get Crouchin Tiger Hidden Dragon, the Crow, or Spirited Away, but not this, if you want a good martial arts film, get Enter the Dragon, The Matrix, The drunken master, or Once upon a time in china but not this. Just avoid this movie!!

Peace

So bad it goes beyond bad to that special hell of movies where the director finds a way to inflict crap at a whole new level.

This is ubercrap taken above the level that most stupid directors can only dream about.

The possibility of a normal human watching the entire movie without some sort of massive hemorrhage is very slim since the brain would be acting in the best interest of the human.

If you inflicted this movie on someone who had just regained their sight, they would be praying for a quick and merciful return to the former state of blindness.

The music in the movie is so bad that many people, who were though deaf, cried out in pain. Not hearing, but feeling the sonic defecation as it de fouled the very molecules air around them.

If you have a enemy in your life, send them this movie. After they see this your enemy will know you are without mercy. They will fear you.

A bag of wet rocks shows more range and depth of acting skill that Seann William Scott. His acting is so bad it makes you question not only the existence of a god, but any reason for anything in life at all.

I truly belive that when CUT was called, he would stand stone still and drool, waiting for commands from the director. Amused by things with lots of bright colors and balls of tinfoil.

The screenwriter has all the skill that only some grade 3 children have. Only those children in a very short bus.

I notice the DVD comes with a directors commentary. I can only assume that it contains the unintelligent yelps and screams of the director as hurls his tattered notes at the microphone and removes his eyes after seeing what he has done.

Chow Yun-Fat looks as if doing this movie was as much fun as a man who is striped naked in public and has his manhood laughed at by passing crowds.

The story you ask? It has Nazis stealing the youthful power of monks to become all powerful!

Even retarded people would think this movie was stupid.

There is not a lot of good to say about this movie. The acting - all of it - is dreadful from Fat to Scott to the Nazi character. Moreso that anything the plot is a blantant rip-off of "The Matrix" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"- two movies that are much better than this monstrosity. The idea of a prodigal hero is taken from both of the movies, and Fat is pretty much the same type of character as he was in "Crouching Tiger" but with a worse script. The rip off from the Matrix is made most apparent in the "philosophical" discussions between the two main characters, Fat and Scott: "You're saying the rules of gravity don't apply." => no i am not quoting "The Matrix," this is a line from "BM." The action scenes are a mix of the two movies, as well, with the idea of being weightless from "Crouching TIger" and 'bullet-time' from the Matrix. As I searched I was unable to find any original idea in the movie, but I was unable to find one.

Ultimately, the only redeeming qualities of the movie are the screen presences of the ever-smirking Sean William Scott and Chow-Yun Fat, who clearly struggles for command of the English language.
Don't waste your time with this movie; instead watch the award winning movies, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "THe Matrix" where the material is actually original and well-used.

The word hokum originated as stage slang when people put together the words "hocus-pocus" and "bunkum". One of its central meanings is a nonsensical waste of time. The word hokum could have been invented to describe "Bulletproof Monk".

"Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" notwithstanding, Chow Yuen-fat should never have moved to Hollywood. With the exception of that movie, which was partly Hong Kong produced anyway, he hasn't done a decent piece of work since he went there. And he's done less work there in the past seven or so years than he used to do in one year in Hong Kong.

"Bulletproof Monk" is yet another addition to the genre that might be known as lousy movies based on indifferent comic books. It begins moderately spectacularly with a fight on a rope bridge hanging over a ravine. The monk with no name (Chow Yuen-fat) is fighting his master. He proves his worth, and his master tells him he's now ready to look after the Scroll of the Ultimate.

"Whoever reads it aloud in its entirety," says the master, "will gain the power to control the world." The question to ask ourselves is why the deities, whoever they are, created such inflammatory objects in the first place.

This supposedly takes place in 1943. The Nazis turn up to capture it, but Chow Yuen-fat's character escapes, and the movie flashes forward to the present and a nameless city that might be New York but is nameless because this is a cheap movie and the budget only stretched to filming in Canada. Sixty years have passed and the ageless monk is soon to find the person who is to replace him as the scroll's guardian.

The monk, scroll in briefcase, encounters a pickpocket named Kar (Seann William Scott). Kar manages to steal the scroll, which is pretty dumb of the monk considering he's supposedly the top dog in the job of protecting it, after which he's taken to the underground den of a gang of thugs. This gang is led by Mr. Funktastic (Patrick Hagarty), who has his name tattooed across his chest, and also includes the beautiful Bad Girl (Jaime King), who turns out to be not so bad after all.

As well as "Bad Girl", there's genuine feminine villainy in the role of Nina (Victoria Smurfit), who is a third-generation Nazi.

"Bulletproof Monk" was written - if that's the word - by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, and based on the comic book by Brett Lewis and RA Jones. John Woo and Terence Chang played a part in producing it, once again apparently proving my theory that the reason some Hong Kong film-makers do OK in Hollywood is that at least one area of Hollywood has fallen off in quality enough that even the more mediocre of Hong Kong movies can get made there now.

It's all directed, pretty much as dully as possible, by a guy called Paul Hunter who apparently previously directed music videos. This movie has none of the slickness of style you associate with music video directors, and I don't mean that in a good way. The cinematography by Stefan Czapsky is lacklustre.

Even Chow yuen-fat isn't looking so good in it. He's put on weight. He has a lousy haircut and lousy lines to speak. He's doing more acting in English, and - unfortunately - his acting in English is not much better than Sammo Hung's. Let's hope that another Asian film-maker will give him the chance to do something decent soon. Seann William Scott - who was in "American Pie", "Road Trip", and "Dude, where's my car?" surprised me by being more watchable.

But it doesn't make any difference. "Bulletproof Monk" is all garbage anyway. And garbage with no style, which makes it even worse.

"Tightly edited"? "Unpretentious"? What can I say except that I wholeheartedly disagree with Amazon editorial reviewer Bret Fetzer? Bulletproof Monk is a sorry excuse for a film. Not only does it waste the talents of Chow Yun-fat, but the action sequences are limp and unexciting, the dialogue flat, and the acting just atrocious.

Even The Medallion was a better film, and that's saying a lot. Bulletproof Monk opens with the phoniest-looking green/blue-screen sequence I've ever seen, with Chow Yun-fat (as "Monk") fighting another monk on a bridge. It looks like they are standing on a dance floor painted to look like a bridge over a ravine! The "action scene" following the opening gives you the feeling that you're in a for a very long night. Director Paul Hunter is easily the worst music video-to-feature director I've seen, even lower than Kevin Donovan (The Tuxedo) or Dominic Sena (Swordfish). He seems determined to use every single shot he's shot for any given action sequence: "Is it exciting? Can we see the characters punching, kicking, jumping, firing their guns? Let's just forego all that and cut in every single beautiful composition I shot on set!" Most ex-music video directors are hyperactive, but Hunter has a raging case of cinematic ADD that puts them all to shame. The action scenes are plainly an eyesore because of this. Hunter should be tied to a chair and forced to watch John Woo's martial-arts sequences from Hand of Death and Last Hurrah for Chivalry for a whole year, because not a single one of his frames is ever good for capturing the action. During the subway-platform chase scene, he massacres his footage so much by editing that you don't even know which character is where at any given point. Through all of the action sequences I kept praying for one shot to stay longer than a second so I can rest my eyes...but that's not to be.

I gave this movie a chance just to see Chow Yun-fat, but even that's not worth it, because he seems to lose all the progress he's made in The Corruptor in terms of acting in English. The acting in this film is audience abuse: Seann William Scott shows that his funny turn as Stifler in the American Pie movies are either a fluke or a credit to the American Pie writers, because his comic timing in Bulletproof Monk is nonexistent. Chow Yun-fat seems crippled by his English on this film, not able to utilize his usual grace and charm, most likely because Hunter just doesn't know how to direct actors. The supporting actors, especially the "Funktastics" (talk about dumb), are so bad they look like they're in audition, reading the script for the first time. The only actor who escapes somewhat unscathed is Jamie King, but one supporting character can hardly save a whole film's worth of horrendous acting.

I've seen some bad action movies in the last couple of years -- Rollerball, for example -- but Bulletproof Monk is the worst yet. Don't even rent this one -- rewatch The Killer or A Better Tomorrow instead if you want to see Chow Yun-fat.

Worst movie I've seen in a long time. Full of cliches, bad acting (except for the amazing Chow yun Fat), not funny at all and with the worst seudo-martial arts ripoff ever!!! I'm not bull... you!, the movie is really bad!...I still don't know why Chow Yun Fat took this role...well probably the money, which makes me wonder on why does Hollywood hired such an incredible international action star like Chow Yun Fat for whatever amount of money if they're going to put him in such a dumb stupid movie that did not make a cent? Nazi gestapo, SS and the Wehrmacht in China (Tibet) in 1943...when did this happened??...What an incredible work of ignorance!!!! and you should see some of the action scenes or CGI work...wire Fu has never been so pathetic its horrible is beyond description...This movie is bad....really bad!

--It amazes me how many great scripts never make it to the screen, yet something like this is produced?! - Anyway, The camera work /edits of the slow-mo stunts -never work out - bad -unpolished look to it, script, chemistry -just not there.

Monk With No Name (Chow Yun-Fat, of Pirates of the Caribbean fame) for 60 years he is being perused by a member (Karel Roden) of the NSPD (National Socialist German Workers' Party.) In his escape, he runs into a potential replacement or two. Lots of made for TV type pseudo-martial arts, Skillful females as well, the monk gets a body part bit by the bad guy (you can say he was chewing the fat.)

There is lots of action from gravity defying twists to overkill helicopters. Therefore, you can see that money has been thrown at this film. Too bad, it is so mediocre. However, for people that keep up with cultural literacy this film is a must for people that read the comic book.

I only watched the Blu-ray version so I cannot compare to other versions.

I love this movie so much! I rented it first to see if I would enjoy it before I paid 20 bucks for it on dvd..and I wish I had just went out and got it insted of renting it! I did not enjoy the matrix one bit! and the only think that keep me from this movie was its matrix look..however I really loved Crouching tiger hidden dragon..and Iron monkey..so I just had a good fealing about this movie, its story is not soo deep or should I say as "stuped" as the matrix.. but knowing some people they will think this movie looks stuped and never give it a chance..Rent this movie and I bet you will be on amazon buying this dvd the next day. so for fans of Iron monkey,Crouching tiger hidden dragon,Matrix<yeah..> or just good old action movie fans this movie is worth the money..but one thing I dont like on the dvd is that this movie is in widescreen ONLY..I hate that so I got the VHS verson also because its full screen.so Rent the VHS and buy the dvd and enjoy!