posted
From what I've gathered from comments on the film from Jackie Chan and Jet Li, it seems like a form of the "let's make a film about transformers, only let's focus on the annoying humans" meme (albeit thankfully lesser) has infected this film. This may end up being a decent popcorn companion but not particularly interesting compared to either Jackie Chan or Jet Li's previous best work.
In an unrelated point, after the subtitled Crouching Tiger and Hero, you'd think they could quit having everyone speak English in bloody ancient (almost prehistory in the rest of the world) China.
Hell, 2046 managed to have the main characters speaking Japanese, Mandarin, and Cantonese (even a couple words of English) in just the first 15 minutes or so, so I don't believe that this is *that* big of a request.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
I thought it was quite enjoyable. Part of that may be skewed by the fact that I hadn't seen a good Kung Fu movie in a while, but still... Story seemed reasonable, acting was decent, fighting was reasonably good, female good-guy was super cute ...
I'd hold out for a review from someone more deeply acquainted with the rest of the genre, but to my eyes it seemed on par with other Jet Li and Jackie Chan movies...
On the translation: since all of the actors were speaking in a language they know I don't see how much of it being in english is a detractor. I can understand some of the issues with dubbed v subtitled movies that are entirely filmed in other languages, but it seemed to work just fine in this case.
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I wanted to go see it, though I was kind of hoping it would involve Mark Salzman in some way, and I don't see any indication that it did.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
On translation: These comments are more applicable for drama and (surprisingly) comedy, two genres where the actor's voice is more important. I also haven't seen the movie yet and I am talking more in general terms.
With that in mind, there are two things that should be considered when deciding on language issues, the language that is appropriate for the story and the language that the actors are comfortable expressing themselves in.
For this film, both are ignored. The language in ancient China should be some form of ancient Chinese, which is obviously closer to Cantonese or Mandarin. Using English does somewhat take me out of the story, especially when both Jet Li and Jackie Chan are not fluent in English (this is of course no fault of their own, Jet Li already had to learn Cantonese when his career started in HK and Jackie Chan is trilingual (+ a smattering of Japanese IIRC)). (If only I could be as fluent in Mandarin as Jackie Chan is in English...)
The bigger problem is that the actors are simply not comfortable in speaking in a different language. Often, when you have to think about what you're saying it becomes much less natural and I can see this reflected on-screen.
The interesting thing is that Hong Kong and to a lesser extent, Chinese films have had to struggle with this for a long time. Back in the 80s(?), the majority of filming was done in Cantonese, with the occasional bits of English due to Hong Kong's history. Mandarin speakers would be forced to speak Cantonese or be dubbed over. But starting in the 90s or so, many films starting filming in a mix of the two and I think the resulting films are definitely superior, even though I am not fluent in Mandarin. The emotion simply carries across better and it just sounds more natural.
Some famous examples are "Comrades, Almost a Love Story" where the language issue is essential to the plot, "In the Mood For Love", the films that I mentioned in my previous post, Infernal Affairs, and even Shaolin Soccer.
Of course, these days they've gone even further. As I mentioned, "2046" includes Japanese, Mandarin, and Chinese. I've also heard that the award-winning "Lust, Caution" includes Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, Japanese and English.
Given this sort of development, its about time that Hollywood starts doing away with monolingual English films, especially when its doubly appropriate in this case.
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posted
Given that this film involved fantasy time travel/magic to insert a modern teenager into the legend of Monkey, I don't have too big a problem with the film being in english. It was probably funded by Hollywood, I'm guessing. Call me opportunistic.
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Modern CGI is preferable to the 60s model work used in Star Trek and Star Wars. However, both are "workable."
The question is not what is workable, but what makes for the best film. IIRC, CJ7 and Kung Fu Hustle were also funded by Hollywood but those were filmed in Mandarin and Cantonese, probably due to Stephen Chow's greater control over his movies.
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posted
My boyfriend and I saw it on Sunday. Our martial arts school was invited to a screening of it on the Wednesday before it opened, but it was WAY overbooked so we decided to wait.
The first thought I had coming out of the theater was "that was silly." The plot did not work for either of us. But really, who watches kung-fu movies for a story anyway. Earlier in the week we watched an old Jackie Chan film called "Drunken Master." The majority of the film was filled with fight scenes with a very loose plot barely woven in between. But did it matter? No, because I wasn't watching the movie in order to be moved by the story or the characters. I was watching because I wanted to see Jackie Chan kick butt (and occasionally have his own butt kicked.)
We're both Shaolin students who were picked on as kids and still love pirated kung-fu movies, and yet I didn't identify with the lead character at all. I've seen the "Wizard of Oz" and half a dozen versions of a "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." I don't need any more original spins on the "lost in an unknown world trying to get home" storylines. The character of Sparrow was completely useless. Everytime she was on screen I imagined all the cool fight scenes that could have been going on when she was rambling about music and revenge.
The fight scenes, though too few, were good. I like that they didn't rely on wires too much. When you dealing with the fantastical characters, that's fine. But Jackie Chan and Jet Li are amazing without them, even if I couldn't believe how much their age was starting to show in their faces.
If they had done a movie about the Drunken Immortal and/or the Monkey King, that would have been great. There's plenty of material there to weave into a collection of fight scenes. It just didn't make sense that the purpose was to unite Jackie Chan and Jet Li, then reduce their screen time by making them secondary characters who are part of a large cast. Their presence just seemed so wasted.
I did appreciate all the staff work (I just started learning my first staff form) and animal styles. And that was it outside of my renewed desire to go to China and study with the monks myself.
On the subject of languages, I think Jackie Chan and Jet Li sounded fine in English (less so for Jet Li but he was the silent monk and he conveys great emotion in his facial expression.) I just didn't understand why it switched back and forth. Pick a language and stick with it. I prefer subtitles but don't mind watching dubs, especially for comedies as someone noted above. I watch Stephen Chow's films in English.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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My problem with the movie was that it couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a comedy, a coming-of-age tale, or a good vs. evil epic. Rather than meld themes, it kinda stumbled back and forth. Shanna pretty accurately sums up the movie's strengths and weaknesses.
The one part where I actually thought the American kid did a good job was where he was getting beat up (go figure) by the witch. His facial expressions and body language were all very convincing in that scene.
quote:The character of Sparrow was completely useless.
Seriously. Giving her a tragic past does not equate to an interesting character. And what was up with he randomly disappearing during the climax for like ten minutes? Killing her off at the end was a cheap attempt at emotional depth. TheGrimace is right though, she's hot.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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*** Spoilers *** Went to see the film anyways with a bunch of friends. Some quick observations:
* You can almost see the glee that Jackie Chan has in being in a Hollywood film where he is not the butt of jokes about him being Chinese. As one of my friends put it, "Yes! Finally a film without Chris Tucker or that random white guy!"
* My expectations were pretty low going in, given that both Jackie Chan and Jet Li haven't been too enthusiastic in their interviews. Thus, I still had a good time since I knew what to expect. This is basically the kung-fu version of Transformers or a Narnia film where the characters go to a mash-up of various kung-fu films instead of a Christian fantasy land.
* Language: This film was clearly aimed at a rather younger demographic than I had expected, thus I think the language choice works here. Unlike Shanna, I liked the switching back and forth, where people near the random white guy speak English but Chinese when away from him. At least you could think that the random white guy had some mystical equivalent of the Babelfish. And its much better than the "everyone speaks English in China" take I kinda expected.
* Random white guy: Meh.
* Sparrow: Pretty useless and oddly overacting, they should have read the Stephen Chow memo on random love interests in Kung-Fu films Don't let them tag-along for the whole movie, just confine them to one or two scenes and make the most of it.
* Amazingly cliched plot, very weak villains especially given the cast of good guys
Bottom line: I thought it was fun anyways It was nice to see Jackie Chan and Jet Li having fun. It was worth it if only to get a permanent recording of two legends fighting in glorious Hollywood financed HD filming.
One annoyance: They reference 'The Bride With White Hair' in the beginning to lead to the evil female character. Thing is, given the light-hearted tone of the movie the reference kinda struggles and suffers for the comparison. (The Bride With White Hair is an amazingly dark, rather mature, and slightly disturbing film with lavish production values (at the time). Its pretty much the polar opposite of this film.)
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Don't let them tag-along for the whole movie, just confine them to one or two scenes and make the most of it.
