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Music video director Paul Hunter makes his feature debut this week
with the kung fu action film Bulletproof Monk starring Chow
Yun-Fat. As BELLY proved for Hype Williams, the transition from
super successful music videos to feature films is not always an
easy one. Unlike Williams who stuck to the familiar in his urban
drama riddled with recording stars and hip-hop themes, Hunter's
flick is heavy on the suspended reality necessary for the high-flying
exaggerated moves of a martial arts movie and way light on black
people, mic checkas or otherwise.
Bulletproof Monk tells the story of a Tibetan monk (Yun-Fat)
whose duty is to protect a powerful ancient scroll. Aging and in
need of a new guardian for the scroll he comes to America and enlists
the help of the self-taught karate bad boy, Kar, played by Seann
William Scott. With the help of Bad Girl (Jamie King) they go about
trying to defeat the evil Nazi (yes, Nazi) whose been trying to
steal the scroll for 60 years.
Though Hunter's direction if formidable and he brings a rarely
seen humor to Yun-Fat's monk, it is the story and character development
where Bulletproof Monk fails. The writing team of Ethan Reiff
and Cyrus Voris steer drastically from the original Bulletproof
Monk comic series written by Gotham Chopra to serve up something
more palatable to an American sensibility. Here, the Asian heroes
become white (with the exception of the Monk of course) and the
Chinese villains becomes Nazi. Spiritual heroism is replaced with
a more Batman style heroism replete with Robin and Bat Girl. If
it is for the love of the universe and spirituality that the scroll
is protected then I'd bet the old Tibetans are prostrating in their
graves. Throughout the film the monk talks about Kar's need for
spiritual growth yet the only thing we see him teach Kar is how
to fly-fight (ala The Matrix and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon).
If Kar has a spiritual side then it is so hidden that by the end
of the movie we're not sure why the young American hero wouldn't
sell that scroll for a good night at the Four Seasons and a bag
of chronic.
The Monk and Kar barely escape the stereotyped pitfalls of their
co-stars and bit players but it is with the character Bad Girl that
you wish the writers trusted our understanding and appreciation
of Asian karate films and not only our pop culture sensibility.
We meet Bad Girl as a street hardened member of a subway gang headed
by a heavily British accented tough named Mr. Funktastic (yeah,
I know). The next time we see her we learn that she's rich, lives
alone in a huge mansion and is the daughter of a wealthy jailed
Russian mobster. Her kung fu moves and knowledge of many languages
(of course Tibetan) is courtesy of her wealthy upbringing. All of
this is not told through story development but by way of a few lines
of dialogue from Bad Girl as she explains why she chose to earn
her "respect in the streets" as a gang member. Still, convenient
for this type of story, the rich girl visits enough museums to be
able to recognize the director of a particular museum as a Nazi
bad guy. As well, the rich thing can replace spirituality should
one ever consider selling that scroll. Bad Girl's character is flat
and even lacking in the comic book humor that some of the other
co-stars possess.
The verdict, mediocre. If there were more action scenes and some
gratuitous sex scenes then, like music videos, we could possibly
ignore the sand that this story is built on. But it isn't so until
you get more to work with Hunter you're, er...stuck with black folks
and MTV.
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