"Bulletproof Monk"
MGM Pictures
Directed by Paul Hunter
Written by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, based on the comic book by Brett Lewis and R.A. Jones
Produced by Terence Chang, Charles Roven and John Woo
Starring Chow Yun-Fat, Seann William Scott, Jamie King Karel Roden and Victoria Smurfit
Rated PG-13
(out of four)

Now, suppose that you’re a nameless martial-art-fighting monk whose job it is to protect a scroll with anti-gravity fighting techniques. The scroll’s significance is that any person who reads it can—brace yourself—rule the world. This means that evil Nazis and groups with similar philosophies want the scroll. Even the monk protecting the scroll isn’t allowed to read it, which begs the question, "Why not simply destroy the scroll so that they don’t need a nameless monk to protect it?"

The answer: Because then there could be no movie named "Bulletproof Monk," and that would be a shame if you were the studio executive who invested in it.

Unfortunately, the film is even sillier than its premise, which is taken from a comic book. As many elements as possible from screenplay formulas are stuffed into the convoluted plot. Chow Yun-Fat plays the nameless Buddhist monk, who started his 60-year term in 1943, two seconds before the Nazis came and shot all his fellow monks, including his predecessor, who didn’t age until he stopped protecting the scroll.

Now the monk is in modern times, at the end of his term. He wanders the streets of New York City, where men in suits with walkie-talkies constantly chase him. They might look like U.S. government agents who want to help the United States take over the world, but no. They’re Nazis. To be specific, they’re Nazis posing as members of a human rights organization.

The monk man quickly teams up with a pickpocket named Kar (Seann William Scott), who learned martial arts from old movies while working at a repertory Chinese movie theater. This theater still uses a reel-to-reel system, yet Kar apparently goes out to thieve in between reels and leaves the projector running. The owner of the theater just sits at the counter waiting while angry customers boo the blank screen.

The monk sees potential in the pickpocket and takes him under his wing. And as luck would have it, there’s also a woman. Jaime King plays Bad Girl, a mysterious street girl with whom Kar likes to flirt. While King does her best, it feels like her character is thrown in to fulfill the vogue role of the active, fighting female, which runs a risk of becoming just as bad as throwing a woman in for the man to rescue if it's only done for the sake of pandering..

But all that matters in films like this is whether or not the action scenes are well done. The fight scenes might be well choreographed, with the occasional nonsensical air-spiral move thrown in for good measure, but I have no way of judging since I couldn’t see any of it throughout the entire movie due to the special effects and editing.

Back in the good old days, there was a bit of pride in special effects. Techniques like stop-motion animation were clearly fake, but they had style and the filmmakers let scenes involving them play out in long takes, allowing the audience to accept things like Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion animation as part of the environment and easily see what is going on.

But wait—it wasn’t just in the good old days. Less than three years ago, Chow starred in Ang Lee’s "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," which featured…air-born martial arts. What a coincidence. Lee actually put his actors on wires to add weight and realism to their fantastical skills, which were shot in long, luscious takes.

In the gravity-defying scenes in "Bulletproof Monk," we see the character jump and shoot through the air magically—well, actually it looks like cheap digital effects. But before we can get a good look at what’s going on, there’s an awkward cut to the second—and sometimes third—part of the jump before the indecipherable landing. It’s as if the filmmakers knew that their effects were complete crap and thought that if they cut as fast as possible, no one would notice. The problems aren’t as apparent when the non-flying Kar is fighting, but the scenes are still pretty standard fare.

In the end, the lame story and lamer effects trivialize the role of all bulletproof monks who protect sacred scrolls from the hands of Nazis.
jeremy@red-mag.com