Bulletproof Monk
a video review
by Ryan Ellis
April 11, 2004
This is the movie for anyone who was itching to see Stifler play a crouching
tiger. There's comic potential in seeing the obnoxious idiot from the
'American Pie' series try to become a legitimate chop-socky master.
Unfortunately, laughs are few and exasperated sighs are many in 'Bulletproof
Monk'. There's nothing new or interesting or exciting in this desperate
attempt to cozy up to North American audiences with the mystical
martial-arts genre. 'The Matrix' and 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' made
wirework famous and lucrative in this part of the world after it had been
done for many years in Asia. Should we throw stones at the Wachowski
brothers for bringing all that stylized wirework to mainstream American
movies, inadvertently causing studios to think it's a well that would never
run dry? The pathetic box office take for 'Bulletproof Monk' seems to prove
that we restless folks in the Western world are tired of the flippity
floppity. What was so "whoa" in 1999 and 2000 just seems dull today.
Before we talk about today, let's talk about the past. Way back in 1943, the
Monk With No Name (Clint Yun-Fat...I mean, Chow Eastwood) inherits the
burden of protecting the Sacred Scrolls of Something or Other and then
watches his mentor gunned down seconds later. Lucky timing. Some magical
mumbo jumbo circled through the temple during the transformation of power,
revealing the Monk's mentor to be a very old man who was kept young &
healthy by the power of those scrolls or some such thing. Nazis want the
scrolls for the same reason they wanted Indiana Jones' Ark and his Holy
Grail and why they wanted Hellboy...to use these remarkable powers to
dominate the planet. The Monk survives the attack (hey, he IS bulletproof)
and journeys to North America 60 years later to stumble upon Kar (Seann
William Scott), a part-time pickpocket, a once-in-a-while film
projectionist, and the heir apparent. And he's right here in Toronto! Okay,
so several Canadian locations are supposed to be substitutes for the States.
Anyway, the chief Nazi is still alive and he's enlisted his granddaughter to
help capture the Monk.
Oh, boy, what a story! I'm sweating. Geez, that's only the 8 billionth time
you've heard that basic set-up...no, wait, I forgot about the girl. The
instantly forgettable Jaime King plays Jade, a wannabe street tough who
seems to be the Monk's best shot at a worthy replacement. What a super-duper
team of single-syllable heroes. It's Monk, Kar, and Jade in 'Uncreative
Character Names In An Uncreative Movie'. Will Jade and Kar push aside their
differences and get smoochy before the movie is over? Will Kar discover his
inner gravity defiance and defeat the bad guy in much the same way Neo does
in 'The Matrix'? Will this insolent young punk prove to be the Monk's
correct choice? Will all these bulletproof heroes and heroines save the
world? If you're cocking your head like Rover because you're just not sure
what the answers to those questions might be...well, watch the movie. The
rest of you know where this is going. It's all a matter of how you get
there.
I've never been the biggest fan of Seann William Scott and the only other
Chow Yun-Fat flick I've seen is 'Crouching Tiger'. Still, I know enough
about the Hong Kong legend to accept that his skills in this genre coupled
with Scott's buffoonish antics should have made this a charming romp. The
expected comedy from watching Stifler try to duel kung fuers is wasted
because he's already a skilled fighter before Monk meets him. He does a
pretty good imitation of the martial arts moves he screens in his theatre,
so his chief goals are to learn some ancient bullshit proverbs and how to
soar ridiculously through the air. How do these plucky martial artists soar
through the air with more agility than birds? Here's the Monk's response to
a question about the existence of the laws of gravity; "if you truly believe
they don't exist, then they don't." Oh, come on. That piece of zen malarkey
is accompanied by an on-going riddle as to why they package 10 weiners and
only 8 buns. If those two examples of pseudo-profundity are the best the
screenwriters could come up with...well, I'm not surprised. Hollywood's
generic "let's make a movie" computer spit this one out at a mind-bogglingly
bland rate. Giving the actors something witty to say would just take too
much time, I guess.
The movie isn't boring, though. I cheerfully spent half the time identifying
Toronto landmarks and locations. Do New Yorkers do that when they watch a
movie made right in their backyard? Plus, who doesn't like to see the
swastikas get knocked silly yet again? Those nasty Nazis take it on the chin
one more time. Oh, those Nazis. Will they ever win? The head evil dude is
played by Karel Roden. He preens his way through a cheap knock-off of a
Peter Stormare performance, a crappy effort at accented scenery-chewing. But
the real disappointment might be the headlining star, Chow Yun-Fat. This was
his first movie after 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' and he's coasting. I
remember the trailer playing up the Monk's insouciant playfulness, although
the movie itself isn't very playful. And while Scott gets to flex his action
muscles, he does nothing that will encourage MGM to make 'Bulletproof
Pickpocket'. Can I claim copyright on that title, in case the word processor
known as Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris write a sequel to their script? No, I
can't? Fine, it sounds stupid anyway.
Really, what did I expect from a first-time director (Paul Hunter) with a
background in music videos? Well, I'd expect him to over-edit his movie or
make it garish or dark or memorable in some way. Nope. The production is
clean enough and the flying actors as visual effects look about the same as
what you'll find in similar highwire movies. If you've stumbled across this
review, you must be into such flippity floppity nonsense. Yeah, genre fans
will get a kick out of this. Quentin Tarantino was probably hootin' and
hollerin' when he saw this flick and Yun-Fat's worldwide fanbase undoubtedly
liked it. For anyone who relishes seeing actors sailing through the air on
digitially erased wires, rent the 'Bulletproof Monk' DVD or catch it on The
Movie Network. For people like me who've had very little exposure to Chow
Yun-Fat or this genre, find another way to burn 100 minutes of your life.
To applaud or scold, write to flickershows@hotmail.com. And check out my
website at http://groups.msn.com/TheMovieFiend.
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