Tuesday, May 20, 2008
15:39 by FoxTwo I know I'm late, but hey, better late than never eh?
In all honesty, I watched this movie three times. Seriously, who can get enough of Jacky Chan and Jet Li? But first, a warning. This blog entry WILL contain spoilers, so if you have not seen the movie, feel free to skip the rest of the entry.
Before we delve into my ramblings on this movie, here's a couple of links by other bloggers who have seen it before me. Well at least, did a writeup of this before I did anyway.
Well the movie opened pretty spectacularly with a shot of the Monkey God (孙悟空) putting the smack down on the Jade Army high atop a mountain somewhere. The move calls him the "Monkey King", which technically isn't wrong, since he *IS* the king of monkeys in the Chinese folklore.
The story is nothing short of fantastic - a modern-day American boy, by some sheer twist of fate, is transported back into Ancient China (中国, or literally translated, "Middle Kingdom") after he came into contact with a magic staff (more accurately, a bo) amidst a botched robbery attempt in a pawnshop in Chinatown. This is the staff of the Monkey God.
In Ancient China, he is very quickly mixed up in a village being attacked by the Jade Army, and as he flees them, he runs into Jacky Chan. The thing that really caught my attention was that the very first fight scene had Jacky Chan using the Drunken Fist (醉拳) to fight off the Jade soldiers. That is almost like an in-joke, since Jacky Chan's first movie was indeed, "Drunken Fist". So Jacky Chan saves the boy and tells him the story of how the Jade Warlord had tricked the Monkey God and imprisoned him in stone, and the staff was the only way to free him.
Then later on in the tavern, they hooked up with a girl called Golden Sparrow. Now this is my first gripe. In English they called her Gold Sparrow. In Chinese, her name is Golden Swallow (金燕子). This is confirmed by the spoken Mandarin dialogue later on when the White Haired Witch (白发摩女) was questioning the innkeeper about a "boy and a vagabond". When she was presented with the dart that Golden Sparrow killed the guards with, she muttered (in Mandarin) "Little Swallow.. let's just see how far you can fly.." before the camera cut away. So, she SHOULD have been "Golden Swallow"! But I guess having a name like "swallow" might be misconstrued :)
The fight scene in the abandoned temple was the best scene in the whole movie, in my opinion. Again during this fight scene, I was tickled to see another "in-joke". The fight started off with Drunken Fist again. Then, Jet Li displayed the Praying Mantis (which I believe was in his first movie). After that, Jacky Chan switched to the Tiger Fist, and that was Jacky Chan's second movie. As the fight progressed, the Snake and Crane forms appeared, in actual chronological order to their respective movies!
The American actor, Michael Angarano, seemed a little stiff when doing the fights. I am guessing that he has no training in the martial arts at all, and it was only the constant rehearsals of the fight scenes that saved him.
The scenes where Jacky Chan taught him kung fu were hilarious. Again, it reminds me of his old movies where he was the one at the receiving end of the torture. The Horse Stance was especially nostalgic. Too bad the joss sticks were missing (from under his butt) because in his first movie, Jacky Chan was forced to remain in Horse Stance for 4 hours until the joss sticks ran out. His master also placed cups full of water on both his arms and on his head as punishment.
Unfortunately, the narrative to show the passage of time where they taught him martial arts seemed rushed. In their old movies, you could see Jacky Chan and Jet Li performing heaps of sit ups, push ups and so on while the narrator droned on and on about the philosophy of kung fu.
Special effects wise, it's a pleasant mix of computer CGI and wire-work. I am sure with modern day CGI, they can easily make Jet Li fly among the mountain tops as the Monkey King.
The whole movie had an epic feel to it, and after watching it 3 times, it still doesn't get stale. It was really too bad that Jason didn't get to kiss Golden Sparrow right before she died though. Would have loved to see just how many people would hiss and boo at that scene :)
In my opinion, this is by far the best "period drama" that has come out of Hollywood. Of course I'm being biased, since I grew up on Jacky Chan movies as spoken in the original Cantonese :) It was also too bad that the Hyena style wasn't shown too, but that would have been too cheesy.
15:39 by FoxTwo I know I'm late, but hey, better late than never eh?
In all honesty, I watched this movie three times. Seriously, who can get enough of Jacky Chan and Jet Li? But first, a warning. This blog entry WILL contain spoilers, so if you have not seen the movie, feel free to skip the rest of the entry.
Before we delve into my ramblings on this movie, here's a couple of links by other bloggers who have seen it before me. Well at least, did a writeup of this before I did anyway.
- Xinyun's thoughts
- Darth Grevious' thoughts (well it's mixed in with other movie reviews)
Well the movie opened pretty spectacularly with a shot of the Monkey God (孙悟空) putting the smack down on the Jade Army high atop a mountain somewhere. The move calls him the "Monkey King", which technically isn't wrong, since he *IS* the king of monkeys in the Chinese folklore.
The story is nothing short of fantastic - a modern-day American boy, by some sheer twist of fate, is transported back into Ancient China (中国, or literally translated, "Middle Kingdom") after he came into contact with a magic staff (more accurately, a bo) amidst a botched robbery attempt in a pawnshop in Chinatown. This is the staff of the Monkey God.
In Ancient China, he is very quickly mixed up in a village being attacked by the Jade Army, and as he flees them, he runs into Jacky Chan. The thing that really caught my attention was that the very first fight scene had Jacky Chan using the Drunken Fist (醉拳) to fight off the Jade soldiers. That is almost like an in-joke, since Jacky Chan's first movie was indeed, "Drunken Fist". So Jacky Chan saves the boy and tells him the story of how the Jade Warlord had tricked the Monkey God and imprisoned him in stone, and the staff was the only way to free him.
Then later on in the tavern, they hooked up with a girl called Golden Sparrow. Now this is my first gripe. In English they called her Gold Sparrow. In Chinese, her name is Golden Swallow (金燕子). This is confirmed by the spoken Mandarin dialogue later on when the White Haired Witch (白发摩女) was questioning the innkeeper about a "boy and a vagabond". When she was presented with the dart that Golden Sparrow killed the guards with, she muttered (in Mandarin) "Little Swallow.. let's just see how far you can fly.." before the camera cut away. So, she SHOULD have been "Golden Swallow"! But I guess having a name like "swallow" might be misconstrued :)
The fight scene in the abandoned temple was the best scene in the whole movie, in my opinion. Again during this fight scene, I was tickled to see another "in-joke". The fight started off with Drunken Fist again. Then, Jet Li displayed the Praying Mantis (which I believe was in his first movie). After that, Jacky Chan switched to the Tiger Fist, and that was Jacky Chan's second movie. As the fight progressed, the Snake and Crane forms appeared, in actual chronological order to their respective movies!
The American actor, Michael Angarano, seemed a little stiff when doing the fights. I am guessing that he has no training in the martial arts at all, and it was only the constant rehearsals of the fight scenes that saved him.
The scenes where Jacky Chan taught him kung fu were hilarious. Again, it reminds me of his old movies where he was the one at the receiving end of the torture. The Horse Stance was especially nostalgic. Too bad the joss sticks were missing (from under his butt) because in his first movie, Jacky Chan was forced to remain in Horse Stance for 4 hours until the joss sticks ran out. His master also placed cups full of water on both his arms and on his head as punishment.
Unfortunately, the narrative to show the passage of time where they taught him martial arts seemed rushed. In their old movies, you could see Jacky Chan and Jet Li performing heaps of sit ups, push ups and so on while the narrator droned on and on about the philosophy of kung fu.
Special effects wise, it's a pleasant mix of computer CGI and wire-work. I am sure with modern day CGI, they can easily make Jet Li fly among the mountain tops as the Monkey King.
The whole movie had an epic feel to it, and after watching it 3 times, it still doesn't get stale. It was really too bad that Jason didn't get to kiss Golden Sparrow right before she died though. Would have loved to see just how many people would hiss and boo at that scene :)
In my opinion, this is by far the best "period drama" that has come out of Hollywood. Of course I'm being biased, since I grew up on Jacky Chan movies as spoken in the original Cantonese :) It was also too bad that the Hyena style wasn't shown too, but that would have been too cheesy.
Labels: movies
