Last Kung Fu Monk

OK, so I only saw about 15 minutes worth of this thing. It falls under the category of B movie making, so you shouldn't expect much other than some halfway decent "kung-fu like" moves. What I wanted to mention was how messed up the young social worker is. We have a young, hot looking girl in New York City who is showing the main character around the city, because, you know, he's visiting from another country. So anyway, he's obviously older, and her brain sort of works so she knows he's a monk. But somehow in the span of about a day, this hot young girl decides to get horny for this older foreign monk and tries to kiss him.......wait stop the picture....what the hell just happened? Are you telling me a hot young girl in NYC can't find one halfway decent boyfriend in a city of 8 million people to spread her legs? She's got to give it up to a visiting foreign older monk? Well that's about the most insulting thing I've ever seen in a movie. Time to leave.

There are few movies that a film lover would rent without first taking into consideration the quality of the acting - Chinese martial arts films are certainly an exception to this rule. This film is a quintessential example of that caveat, turning what initially would be perceived as a poorly scripted, amateur attempt at entertainment into a rather enjoyable two hours of remarkably impressive fight sequences. Even after reading what the movie was about, I'm still not sure the plot ever actually permeates into a logical series of events. And I've seen better acting from college kids with a video camera pretending to have talent. But that's not the reason we choose to rent these kinds of flicks is it? We rent them to have a few hours viewing of ass kicking while enjoying a late night indulgence - and to this extent the movie achieves a most lovable form of quality. What the cast lacks in talent, they make up for in looks; the supporting actresses are gorgeous and the lead actor is in fine shape. The direction and editing is notably horrific. The choreography, on the other hand, is on par with most other movies of its genre. Last Monk of Kung Fu never lives up to the level that Ong Bak set (the plots have considerable correlation) but it does provide a great few hours of action and unintended laughs.

MY quick rating - 3,8/10. I suppose the fighting scenes were OK but completely unbelievable (and not in the good neat looking wire effects) but overall the story was boring. Same old Asian guy from out of town to beat up the dumb Americans thing. Could be fun but here is some of the worst acting in a long time. I have seen actors that look afraid to say their lines in front of camera, but this movie found EVERY single person afraid to say their lines. This major flaw is coupled with the worst editing possible. Think of how your home movies look and you use the fade button on your 200 dollar camera, that is what this whole movie is for any scene change. It reeks of low quality all around minus Li Zhang who obviously has been trained well. Maybe if this movie was a documentary or based on someone who went through this, it may have been a bit better off, but stand alone fiction, nope, I suggest passing on this one.

The action choreography is pretty good. Not get out of here fantastic or exceptional or whatever, but it is more than solid. And I wanted to start with this, because when the movie starts (and you haven't read what it is about), you could be excused by thinking this is a documentary. It might have worked better as one actually.

But it isn't, it is a fictional story with actors who have issues with their lines and acting in general at times. Our main hero is good at what he does action wise, but when it comes to delivering lines, you might feel weird watching this happen ... If you skip to the action scenes, you'll be good and they are the only reason I rated this that "high" ...

I've seen a lot of decent Kung-fu movies, however this is not one of them. If you are expecting a Jackie Chan kind of martial arts comedy, then this is not for you (even though they do have the outtakes at the end of the film). Where Jackie Chan films are generally quite humorous, the only humor in this film comes from how bad the acting is. The fight scenes are not bad, but the horrific acting cancels them out, such that you end up at the end of the film wishing you had spent the time doing something else. The main actress is quite cute, however the storyline is so far fetched as to be comical. Seriously, do not waste your time with this flick and watch a Jackie Chan movie instead. You'll be glad you did.