Bulletproof Monk (2003)

[NikoEstevan 5]

I remember when this first came out and I was fairly amped to see it, being at that stage where kung fu movies were the shit. Well it came on tv last night and I caught the last 2/3rds of it and goddam if there isn't a hdtgm moment every 5 minutes. Let me set the scene:

 

Chow Yun-Fat is a monk in NY (very fish out of water), Sean William Scott is a huge fuck up criminal and tries soooooo hard to be comic relief even in the dramatic moments, Jamie King plays a Russian mobster heiress (kinda badly I might add), and the bad guy is a nazi...right there, prime pickens for an ep.

 

My biggest reasons for why this should be an episode are the following:

-This movie wants sooooooooo badly to be the Matrix, it's just sad how they stole action scenes and fighting moves, wire fighting styles, slowed down time, leather trenchcoats...the list goes on and on.

-The monk is, throughout the whole movie, making these Tao-Te-Ching-esqe metaphors and similes, like you cannot have up without down and right without left...that kind of shit...yet for all the stupid metaphors the one thing they actually take literally is that he's FUCKING BULLETPROOF...I thought that was just supposed to be like his moral compass, not his fucking skin.

-The bad guy is so stereotypically a bad guy, it's like they didn't even want to think of something original for him to do...he's a nazi...he wants ultimate power...he's performs weird experiments on unwilling participants...it's just humorous how unnecessarily evil they make him

 

Honorable mention moments:

-When Sean William Scott breaks into her palace place and they get into a small fight...it's just so fucking overly sexualized...like she'll employ some kind of karate move that serves no purpose other than to put her in a sexually suggestive/submissive position...she and he cycle through a half dozen sex positions while they're "fighting".

-That foreign cab driver that says "bomb diggity"...I had completely forgotten about that momement even though it's like the most memorable part of the movie.

[PhillipMedoc 648]

-This movie wants sooooooooo badly to be the Matrix, it's just sad how they stole action scenes and fighting moves, wire fighting styles, slowed down time, leather trenchcoats...the list goes on and on.

You do realize that The Matrix did not invent wire-fu, right? It was riffing on decades of Hong Kong action films. The Matrix's fight scenes were choreographed largely by Yuen Woo-Ping, who had been doing kung fu for the Shaw Brothers since the early 1970s. He even directed the classic Drunken Master, with Jackie Chan.

 

And Bulletproof Monk's fight choreography was by Corey Yuen, another long time veteran of HK kung fu movies. So to say that this one rips off the Matrix rustles my jimmies a lil' bit.

 

I will grant that the bullet time effect was a Matrix first, I believe. It's hilarious to look back at that period when literally every action movie used it to some degree. Even tons of commercials were doing it as well.

[sillstaw 414]

You do realize that The Matrix did not invent wire-fu, right? It was riffing on decades of Hong Kong action films. The Matrix's fight scenes were choreographed largely by Yuen Woo-Ping, who had been doing kung fu for the Shaw Brothers since the early 1970s. He even directed the classic Drunken Master, with Jackie Chan.

 

And Bulletproof Monk's fight choreography was by Corey Yuen, another long time veteran of HK kung fu movies. So to say that this one rips off the Matrix rustles my jimmies a lil' bit.

 

Yeah, but I don't think people in Hollywood were going, "Wow! Hong Kong action movies have this new wire-fu stuff! Let's rip them off!" Commercially, they were most likely looking at how successful "The Matrix" was and ripping that off; the fact that "The Matrix" ripped off/paid homage to Hong Kong action movies just means this is a second-hand copy.

[JustinL 216]

I re-watched this recently for the first time since seeing it in theaters, remembering that it was entertainingly bad...but I don't know. I was mostly bored. It's really saying something that I had a better time watching Street Fighter again. But it could possibly spawn an exasperated conversation similar to the Last Airbender episode.

[NikoEstevan 5]

I totally get what you mean about the Hong Kong kung fu movies and their wire styles, but only maybe half of the scenes I'm talking about are that style of fighting (I liken it to the crouching tiger style)...what I'm talking about is the running on walls and the Trinity scorpion kick type stuff...

 

I wouldn't have even called the movie out for being matrix-y if it wasn't for the bullet time, and the gun play, and the bad guys looking EXACTLY like agents, and the leather on leather attire (and I think sunglasses) at the end.

[sillstaw 414]

I totally get what you mean about the Hong Kong kung fu movies and their wire styles, but only maybe half of the scenes I'm talking about are that style of fighting (I liken it to the crouching tiger style)...what I'm talking about is the running on walls and the Trinity scorpion kick type stuff...

 

I wouldn't have even called the movie out for being matrix-y if it wasn't for the bullet time, and the gun play, and the bad guys looking EXACTLY like agents, and the leather on leather attire (and I think sunglasses) at the end.

 

"The Matrix" probably didn't invent those, either, but I see what you mean now. (And really, if I were to start claiming, "Oh, 'The Matrix' ripped off the walking-on-walls stuff from Fred Astaire!" I would look insane.)

[Kream15 11]

A monk, a russian, and a petty thief walk into a bar...

This was actually based on a graphic novel (which is just as shit). 

The book came out September 3rd, 2002.

The movie came out April 16th, 2003. 

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

Its amazing how much of Sean William Scotts filmography is deserving of an episode.