Movie Review for Bulletproof Monk

Summary: The Monk is a Zen-calm martial arts master whose duty hasbeen to protect a powerful ancient scroll. Faced with finding the scroll's next guardian, the Monk's quest brings him to New York City where--to his disbelief--it appears his successor is a smart-mouthed pickpocket named Kar. Kar's a charming, street-tough wild card who enjoys his life of no responsibility. As the Monk instructs Kar, the unlikely duo become partners in protecting the scroll from a power-monger who's been chasing it for sixty years. Amidst high-flying acrobatics and martial arts action, this comical odd couple has to work together to keep the scroll--and mankind--safe.

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By Kamal 'The Diva' Larsuel of 3BlackChicks Review (7/0)
            This story, while entertaining, is hardly bulletproof.

By Mike McGranaghan of Aisle Seat (7/0)
            Not bad, but it has a combination of little things that – when added together – had the cumulativ...

By Lori Hoffman of Atlantic City Weekly (7/0)
            The bottom line is, this qualifies as a guilty pleasure.

By Marrit Ingman of Austin Chronicle (7/0)
            So goofy it borders on camp.

By Jamie Russell of BBC (7/0)
            Truly naff, but endearingly silly.

By Bill Stamets of Chicago Reader (7/0)
            The fight scenes are routine, the humor juvenile, and the Toronto locales rendered drab through m...

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By Joshua Tyler of CinemaBlend.com (7/0)
            This one is top of the line cliché, mixing in the spotty traditions of overused wire-fu with the ...

By Karina Montgomery of Cinerina (7/0)
            The decent stuff just outweighs the silliness factor to make an enjoyable piece of fun.

By Jeffrey M. Anderson of Combustible Celluloid (7/0)
            Garbage.

By Larry Carroll of Countingdown.com (7/0)
            The script seems to have been developed with a desire for the bare minimum, and that work ethic h...

By Jonathan Ross of Daily Mirror [UK] (7/0)
            After the terrific opening sequence it's downhill all the way.

By Robert Denerstein of Denver Rocky Mountain News (5/2)
            The movie mixes dull dialogue, martial arts wire work and half-baked approximations of Eastern ph...

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By John J. Puccio of DVDTown.com (7/0)
            ...nonstop fighting, kicking, punching, and killing, with a dollop of juvenile humor thrown in.

By Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly (7/0)
            As ungainly in its jammed-together East-meets -West-ness as Steven Seagal in a yoga pose.

By Eric D. Snider of EricDSnider.com (7/0)
            It is not offensively stupid or anything; it's just silly. None of it makes any sense, and its ma...

By Walter Chaw of Film Freak Central (6/1)
            Accompanies every appearance of an Asian person onscreen with bamboo flutes and reverential gongs...

By Daniel Eagan of Film Journal International (7/0)
            Careens from set-piece to set-piece, each one more ineptly staged than the last.

By Jimmy O of Film Snobs (7/0)
            It may be easy to say that I'll throw a bone to anything that even attempts to take traditional g...

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By James Brundage of filmcritic.com (7/0)
            For all its kitsch Bulletproof Monk is simple, silly fun.

By Daniel Etherington of FilmFour.com (7/0)
            Reliable low-expectation entertainment lifted by the charismatic Chow Yun-Fat.

By Victoria Alexander of FilmsInReview.com (7/0)
            Insufferable. Chow Yun-Fat still needs a good American movie, but is time slipping away?

By Todd Gilchrist of FilmStew.com (7/0)
            . . . a mishmash of B-movie clichés and horribly shot sequences assembled as a pre-emptive strike...

By MaryAnn Johanson of Flick Filosopher (7/0)
            Gloriously, exuberantly silly.

By Rob Vaux of Flipside Movie Emporium (7/0)
            By the time the bad guys start hooking Buddhists up to pseudo-bondage torture devices, there's no...

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By Peter Bradshaw of Guardian [UK] (7/0)
            Great title, but this martial-arts comedy doesn't quite live up to it.

By Ross Anthony of Hollywood Report Card (7/0)
            Creative, careful, artful opening feels spun with magic. If only the rest was as rich as that ope...

By Bruce Westbrook of Houston Chronicle (7/0)
            [Chow] and Scott spark some fine chemistry, with amusing contrasts between the philosophical monk...

By Steve Rhodes of Internet Reviews (7/0)
            If you've been waiting for The Raiders of the Lost Ark to be remade as a bad kung fu film, wait n...

By JoBlo of JoBlo's Movie Emporium (7/0)
            There isn't much that I even remember about this movie now, only an hour after having seen it.

By Bob Bloom of Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN) (7/0)
            The wire work and martial arts action is fun to watch, and the chick fight will hold the attentio...

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By Alex Sandell of Juicy Cerebellum (7/0)
            You will consider Bulletproof Monk to be one of the best films ever made ... for the first ten mi...

By Andrea Chase of Killer Movie Reviews (7/0)
            [Chow's] got charisma to burn. In case I haven't made the point yet, he is the reason to see this...

By Matt Kelemen of Las Vegas CityLife (7/0)
            … bringing music-video director Paul Hunter was a good move for pacing, but he could use a few le...

By John Larsen of Light Views (7/0)
            Like "Old School" and "Deep Throat: The High School Years," "Bulletproof Monk" is the latest atte...

By Kenneth Turan of Los Angeles Times (7/0)
            Oblivious to how formulaic and uninvolving all this gets is director Hunter, who to all intents a...

By Kevin N. Laforest of Montreal Film Journal (7/0)
            This unremarkable B-movie could have used some more Funktastic.

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By Ken Hanke of Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC) (7/0)
            The very teaming of Chow Yun-Fat and Seann William Scott suggested we were in for Dude, Where's M...

By Clint Morris of Moviehole (7/0)
            Riddled with awesome fight scenes, outfitted with a great tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, and equ...

By A. O. Scott of New York Times (7/0)
            The lighting is bad, the editing of the action sequences sometimes messy, but these infelicities,...

By John Anderson of Newsday (7/0)
            Director Hunter can't decide if he's making a comedy or an action film and seems to make the wron...

By Jeffrey Westhoff of Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL) (7/0)
            Any movie that pairs the star of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with the guy who played Stifler i...

By Frank Swietek of One Guy's Opinion (7/0)
            What starts out as a stylish bit of hokum has degenerated into a bloated, banal farrago of cliche...

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By Tyler Hanley of Palo Alto Weekly (7/0)
            Add another martial-arts flick to the growing list of Matrix wannabes.

By Dawn Taylor of Portland Tribune (7/0)
            Chow exhibits a self-deprecating charm that plays well against Scott’s streetwise goofball.

By Linda Cook of Quad City Times (Davenport, IA) (7/0)
            Dude, where's my comic book?

By David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews (7/0)
            There is exactly one effective action sequence in the film, involving Chow and two guns, but that...

By Tor Thorsen of Reel.com (7/0)
            Monk's hero may be bulletproof, but all the magic in Tibet couldn't make this fiasco idiotproof.

By James Berardinelli of ReelViews (7/0)
            Outside of the moments of kinetic madness that represent the action sequences, this movie is an a...

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By Charles Taylor of Salon.com (7/0)
            [A] lightweight but delightful martial-arts romp.

By Jim Judy of Screen It! (7/0)
            A mess from start to finish.

By Paul West of Seattle Post-Intelligencer (7/0)
            The film's only distinction remains Chow.

By Rich Cline of Shadows on the Wall (7/0)
            It's no mean feat to make a film this smart look so fluffy and stupid!

By Ed Gonzalez of Slant Magazine (7/0)
            A film like this has it bad when a crash test dummy steals the show.

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat of Spirituality and Practice (7/0)
            It is good to watch Chow Yun-Fat step on the stairs of air in his high-flying acrobatic moves, bu...

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By Rob Blackwelder of SPLICEDWire (7/0)
            The movie's ho-hum fight scenes are clearly under-choreographed and over-edited to mask the fact ...

By Nick Rogers of State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL) (7/0)
            In honor of Yun-Fat’s Zen calm, let’s say, 'Just because one has directed countless Mariah Carey ...

By Tony Toscano of Talking Pictures (U.S.) (7/0)
            ...I got the distinct impression the actors were bored as well.

By Scott Nash of Three Movie Buffs (7/0)
            very childish, and just a little trashy.

By Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide's Movie Guide (7/0)
            So formulaic it starts to fade from memory before the last punch is thrown.

By Mike Clark of USA Today (7/0)
            This is not a movie that sparks questions about the meaning of life. Well, maybe one: Dude, where...

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By Matthew Turner of ViewLondon (7/0)
            Great title, disappointing movie.

By Ed Park of Village Voice (7/0)
            For all the leads' individual appeal, they seem to occupy slightly different films.

By Jeffrey Chen of Window to the Movies (7/0)
            I think the filmmakers wanted this movie to be some kind of homage to old Hong Kong kung-fu flick...

By Bill Muller of Arizona Republic (3/4) No reference
            Model-turned-actress Jaime King changed her first name (from James) to star in Bulletproof Monk. ...

By Emily Blunt of Blunt Review (3/4) No reference
             You dig special effects? See this but be ready for a generic plot.

By Wade Major of Boxoffice Magazine (3/4) No reference
            What's supremely disappointing about Bulletproof Monk is that the action scenes which are presuma...

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By Robert K. Elder of Chicago Tribune (3/4) No reference
            Bulletproof Monk may be the first movie based on a comic book to outshine its source material. Un...

By Bill Pearis of Citysearch (3/4) No reference
            The bait-and-switch ads for Bulletproof Monk promise something between The Matrix and Rush Hour, ...

By Mary F. Pols of Contra Costa Times (3/4) No reference
            An incompetently patched-together mess.

By Jeff Vice of Deseret News, Salt Lake City (6/1) No reference
            This lame martial-arts superhero action film has a lot more in common with Highlander and the lon...

By Jason Anderson of eye WEEKLY (6/1) No reference
            The presence of the star of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon also emphasizes the utter lack of eleg...

By Staci Layne Wilson of Fantastica Daily (3/4) No reference
            Much of Bulletproof Monk is way over the top, and it's definitely a check-your -brain-at-the -pop...

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By Kit Bowen of Hollywood.com (3/4) No reference
            If it weren't for Chow Yun-Fat, Bulletproof Monk would be shooting blanks.

By Liz Braun of Jam! Movies (3/4) No reference
            What's good about Bulletproof Monk is Chow Yun-Fat, with his elegant fight persona and his unders...

By Louis B. Hobson of Jam! Movies (3/4) No reference
            Its entertainment value is as modest as its production values.

By Robert W. Butler of Kansas City Star (3/4) No reference
            Hey, they can't all be Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

By Danny Minton of KBTV-NBC (Beaumont, TX) (3/4) No reference
            For being bulletproof, this monk sure does have a lot of holes!

By Hazel-Dawn Dumpert of L.A. Weekly (3/4) No reference
            It's a testament to Chow's star power that, even with an accent more than casually reminiscent of...

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By Josh Bell of Las Vegas Weekly (3/4) No reference
            An uneasy combination of self-help bromides, poorly edited fight sequences and music video-style ...

By Bob Strauss of Los Angeles Daily News (3/4) No reference
            The story doesn't hold up to the least bit of logical scrutiny.

By Mack Bates of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (6/1) No reference
            An action-packed popcorn movie that never pretends to be anything but fast, loose and funny.

By Colin Covert of Minneapolis Star Tribune (3/4) No reference
            Bulletproof Monk shoots blanks.

By Brian Orndorf of Modamag.com (6/1) No reference
            This film is shot full of holes.

By Nell Minow of Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies (6/1) No reference
            A popcorn pleasure -- an action movie with a little wit, a lot of spirit, and some kick-butt kick...

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By Michael Elliott of Movie Parables (6/1) No reference
            In a kung-fu movie like Bulletproof Monk, where laws of physics don't apply, the laws of logic ar...

By James Rocchi of Netflix (3/4) No reference
            Chow Yun-Fat's attempt at a Jackie Chan-style partnership with Seann William Scott might be calle...

By Stephen Whitty of Newark Star-Ledger (3/4) No reference
            Everything here is borrowed from other movies ...

By Kim Morgan of Oregonian (3/4) No reference
            An embarrassing exercise in muddled comedy, buddy bonding and touching drama fueled by a hackneye...

By Roger Moore of Orlando Sentinel (3/4) No reference
            If you like your chop-sockey with a healthy serving of cheese, corn and a few giggles, you won't ...

By Gary Thompson of Philadelphia Daily News (3/4) No reference
            A Damoclesian Sword of Badness hangs by a thread over the entire production, but Monk dances merr...

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By David Hiltbrand of Philadelphia Inquirer (3/4) No reference
            This isn't really a movie, it's just one chase scene stacked on top of another and stitched toget...

By Andrew Manning of Radio Free Entertainment (3/4) No reference
            Chow Yun-Fat delivers stylish action and finally shows American audiences a sense of humor, but w...

By Sean Means of Salt Lake Tribune (3/4) No reference
            Fights like this should flow elegantly, like Fred Astaire dance routines, not jump around like a ...

By Jerry McCormick of San Diego Union-Tribune (3/4) No reference
            Despite Chow's efforts, Monk has plot holes as big as the Grand Canyon, and the fight scenes only...

By Ted Fry of Seattle Times (3/4) No reference
            Cheesy fun.

By Chris Hewitt (St. Paul) of St. Paul Pioneer Press (3/4) No reference
            Like most of the movies based on video games, Bulletproof is just mayhem, unencumbered by plot, l...

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By Josh Larsen of Sun Publications (Chicago, IL) (3/4) No reference
            There are quite a few long moments when everyone stands around waiting for Scott to throw in ad-l...

By Mac Verstandig of The Badger Herald (3/4) No reference
            Bulletproof Monk has a snide confidence that its petty jokes of culture shock will actually elici...

By Dustin Putman of TheMovieBoy.com (3/4) No reference
            Strictly vacuous and insulting.

By Jonathan R. Perry of Tyler Morning Telegraph (Texas) (3/4) No reference
            It’s so bad there’s no way it can’t attract a cult following.

By Vanessa Sibbald of Zap2it.com (6/1) No reference
            While some of the buddy sequences between Monk and Kar have a sweetness to them, as soon as Jade ...

By Scott Von Doviak of Fort Worth Star-Telegram (6/1) Not Reachable
            A paper-thin pastiche of martial arts, superheroics and cross-cultural comedy.

                         Reviews of Bulletproof Monk
By Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone of TheMovieChicks.com (6/1) Not Reachable
            Nobody expects too much depth in an action movie based on a comic book series, but we would like ...

Movie Distributors
MGM Distribution Company

Production Companies
Mosaic Media Group
Lion Rock Productions
Lakeshore Entertainment

Movie Studios
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM)