BULLETPROOF MONK

'''Bulletproof Monk''' is a 2003 martial arts comedy fantasy film starring Chow Yun-Fat, Seann William Scott, Jaime King, directed by Paul Hunter. It is loosely based on the comic book by Michael Avon Oeming.

Contents

Plot

Cast

Reaction

Trivia

Goofs

Quotes

References to other movies

External links

Plot

The film opens in Tibet in the 1943 with two Tibetan monks fighting, the Monk and his master, while a small boy with a monkey looks on. The Monk wins and his master says that he has passed. First he completed the three prophecies, fought an army of enemies while a flock of cranes circled overhead, fought for love at the palace of Jade and saved his brothers who he did not know. He has one final sacrifice which is to give up his name; the Monk says he already has. They go into a temple and the master is going to pass the job of protecting the Scroll of the Ultimate. The small boy who was watching them enters the temple behind them secretly. The Monk kneels in front of the master while holding the Scroll whilst the master puts his hand on his head. The wind blows a little harder and there is something transferring from the master to the Monk, we are then shown that a couple of Nazis are watching this through binoculars. The process is complete and the Monk is the new protector, he then looks up and sees an aged, old master. He says now for the next 60 years it is his - the Monk's - job to protect the Scroll. They come out of the temple, while the master says that now he can do what he hasn't done in 60 years, take a vacation. At that moment he is shot multiple times. He's dragged into the temple by the Monk where he dies. The Monk sees the boy and tells him to run for safety while locking the doors. Outside the other Tibetan monks stand together in front of the door to stop the Nazis, but they shoot through them and the captain sends two Nazis into the temple, however shots are heard and the two Nazis are thrown out, their guns are thrown after them in pieces. The Nazi captain goes into the temple, while the Monk fights the other Nazis, but he doesn't find the Scroll since the Monk has already taken it. He comes out to see the Monk has beaten all of his soldiers. He shoots at the Monk who easily dodges bullets before stopping at a cliffs edge, where he is shot in the heart and jumps off. The captain follows him but is shocked to see no sign of the Monk. He calls out to the Monk before shouting Monk.
The scene is then forward to 60 years later, where a young pickpocket, Kar (Seann William Scott), is pickpocketing people in the subway, and then he picks a plainclothes police man who handcuffs him, but the pickpocket is able to free himself and handcuff the police officer to a railing. The pickpocket runs away from other policemen, while above in the street we are show the Monk reading a newspaper when he notices several men in suits watching him, and he makes a run for it, into the subway. The pickpocket is too fast for the police and the Monk is faster than the men chasing him, however both the pickpocket and the Monk are running on the platform in opposite sides and bump into each other, causing a young girl to fall onto the train's path. The Monk jumps to help the girl whose foot is stuck, the men following him run off when they see the police and the pickpocket jumps after the Monk to help him. The Monk lifts the rail without touching it while the pickpocket pulls the girl's foot, they save the girl and jump out of the way when the train comes, allowing them to escape but the pickpockets bag of stolen goods is left behind.
The Monk and the pickpocket introduce themselves, while the pickpocket Kar steals the Scroll from the Monk and runs away. Then wherever Kar goes he is chased by the Monk who thinks that Kar could be the next protector of the Scroll. When fighting in the street against a small time crime-lord called Mister Funktastic (Marcus Jean Pirae),[1] he meets Jade, with whom he falls in love. The Monk then follows Kar home, and watches him at home practicing kung fu, by watching Chinese martial arts movies. He leaves in the morning, but Kar runs into him again on the street where Kar is pickpocketing. And the Monk pickpockets Kar and returns the wallet Kar stole. They are talking when Jade walks up to them asking for her necklace which Kar apparently stole so he could later return it and be in her good graces. However the mercenaries chasing the Monk find him causing him to run, with Kar tagging along.
The Monk and Kar lose the men when they enter an Asian laundry and go underground, where there are other Tibetan monks who are ready to become the next protector. The master there is the nephew of the young boy at the beginning of the film. The Monk then goes to a building where he teaches Kar how to fight like he does. They are attacked and the Scroll is taken, however they upon reading the Scroll Strucker finds that it is a recipe for noodle soup, and the Monk later shows the scroll tattooed into his body. The Monk and Kar return home, to find that Mr. Kojima has been murdered by Nina, who is Strucker's grand-daughter. The pair run away from the men in suits who find them at the Golden Palace cinema (Kar's workplace and home) and they run to the same Asian laundry but are found by Nina, as they were betrayed by a Monk who wants the power of the Scroll and is willing to share it with Strucker. The monk is however taken to Strucker's headquarters and tortured.
The Monk and Kar go to Jade's house and find out that Jade is the daughter of a Russian crime lord, who is currently in jail. Nina and her guards appear and take the Monk away by tranquillising him, while beating Jade and Kar. Jade and Kar go to Strucker's headquarters, where Strocker has read the text of the Scroll except the last line which is memorized by the Monk and he won't give it up. Strucker uses a device which extracts information from a person's brain, but before he can extract the last line Jade and Kar arrive freeing the Monk. A fight ensues, where Strucker fights both the Monk and Kar before threatning to throw Kar off the roof of the building if the Monk does not give him the last line. However Kar, is able to beat Strucker who is thrown off the building onto electrical cables below. Jade saves all the other Tibetan monks, they meet and the Monk makes Kar the protector, however Strucker who has absorbed most of the Scroll's power comes back and shoots Kar but Jade jumps in front of him, and Kar finishes off Strucker while a statue falls on him finally killing him. Kar then goes to Jade's side and lifts her shirt to see her wound but there are some inscriptions on her stomach, and Jade is fine. The Monk then tells them that they both passed the three prophecies and passed the final test. The next day the Monk meets Kar and Jade and whispers the last line to each of them; half of it to Kar and half to Jade who he says are now inseparable as opposites attract, he then leaves. It is assumed he is going to take a vacation.

Cast

★ Monk With No Name - Chow Yun-Fat

★ Kar - Seann William Scott

★ Jade aka "Bad Girl" - Jaime King

★ Strucker - Karel Roden

★ Nina - Victoria Smurfit

★ Master Monk - Roger Yuan

★ Mr. Kojima- Mako

★ Mister Funktastic - Marcus Jean Pirae

Reaction

The film got mostly negative reviews from film critics. Critics complained that the fight scenes were not as well choreographed or directed as those in similar movies such as ''The Matrix'' and ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' and also that the alternating comedic and action scenes were jarring.[2] The movie grossed about $23.4 million domestically, far below the film production budget of $52 million.[3]

Trivia

★ Jaime King broke her finger during filming, but not in any of the stunts - just while walking up the stairs talking on the phone.

★ The actors who portray the monks in the movie are real martial artists from the Sunny Tang Martial Arts Center located in Toronto, Canada.

★ The visual effects for this film was handled by "Boy Wonder Visual Effects", a company headed by Burt Ward.

★ Heath Ledger considered the role of Kar but turned it down to star in Ned Kelly.

★ The conclusion of the movie originally had Mr. Funktastic's gang leading Jade and Kar underground to battle Nina's goons and rescue the monks. This ending finished with a climactic fight underground, not on top of a skyscraper. The alternate ending and deleted scenes featuring Mr. Funktastic and co. can be found on the DVD.

Goofs

★ During the fight on the rooftop, when Kar falls over the side of the building, you can see a PA dressed in his traffic gear in the middle of the intersection in the top left corner of the screen.

★ When Jade is talking to the cinema owner her hair is alternately behind her ear/hanging straight between shots.

★ While the Monk and Kar talk as they walk down a crowded street, the same woman in a blue coat with a hood walks past them in the same direction several times.

★ After Kar's fight with Mister Funktastic, the dirt patterns on Mister Funktastic's chest and back change between shots.

★ When we see Jade's car explode from above there's no one around it, while in the next shot people are caught by the blast.

★ When the bad guys show up in three cars in the rain to get the actual scroll, one of the cars has it's low-beams on- in the next shot from above, that car has on its high beams.

★ Several of the Nazis carry Desert Eagle pistols made by Israeli Military Industries.

★ When Strucker is reading the recipe for chicken soup, he is holding the scroll upside down.

★ The train that passes by in the scene in the in the subway tunnel, clearly says Kipling, which is a station in the Toronto, Canada subway system, and is not the city in which the movie is set.

★ While Monk and Kar are on the boat at night you can see Toronto's CN Tower.

★ When Jade and Nina fight in the tunnel in some shots it is shown that Nina has on high-heeled boots yet in the actual fighting she is obviously wearing flats.

★ As Jade and Kar chit-chat and drive down the freeway in her SUV to rescue Monk, a quick shot of the window behind Jade shows the vehicle is not moving.

★ When Kar is standing over Kojima's body, it is daylight outside. Several moments later he is outside in the nighttime.

★ When Jade and Nina fight in the tunnel, one of the blades is seen wobbling indicating an obvious rubber prop knife.

★ When Kar and Jade are in the car driving to save Monk, Jade grabs Karr's hand. In the next shot, both of her hands are on the steering wheel before returning to Karr's hand in the shot after that.

★ During the subway chase, one of the policeman chasing Kar pauses to sit on a bench, next to a woman. In the next shot, the policeman is sitting alone and the women is standing away from the bench.

★ Until Kar grabs the window ledge, the window is only open a little. In the next shot, the window is halfway open before Kar gets a handhold and swings through the window into the room.

★ After the monk has been thrown against a brick wall by Strucker, the bricks crumbling from the impact can be seen to be actually brick tiles.

★ The amount of blood in Jade's hand after she first opens it to reveal the bullet is different in the next shot.

Quotes

:''[Monk puts some ointment on Kar's hand]''
:'Kar': Hey, I like this. It's cool. It's comfy. It's fast acting. This stuff is great. What is it?
:'Monk': Homemade. From my own urine.
:''[Kar sniffs his hand'']
:'Kar': That's disgusting!
----
:'Kar': So, I figured it out, why hot dogs come in packages of ten and hot dog buns come in packages of eight. See, the thing is, life doesn't always work out according to plan so be happy with what you've got, because you can always get a hot dog.
----
:'Monk': Why do hot dogs come in packages of ten, but hot dog buns only come in packages of just eight?
:'''Kar''': What the hell is that?
----
:''[Nina shows Jade a picture of a refugee kneeling in front of a man with a rifle]''
:'Nina': Tell me, deep inside, at the bottom of your soul, who would you rather be? The man about to be shot? Or the man about to do the shooting?
----
:'Monk': An enlightened man would offer a weary traveler a bed for the night, and invite him to share a quiet conversation over a bowl of.... Cocoa Puffs.
----
:'Monk': It's not about anger - it's about peace. It's not about power - it's about grace. It's not about knowing your enemy - it's about knowing yourself.
----
:'Strucker': You may be my granddaughter. But that will only protect you for so long.
----
:'Monk': Air is as real as you and me. You have to step on it as if it were a stone, swim through it as if it were the sea. All you have to do is truly believe.
:'''Kar''': Believe what, that the laws of gravity don't exist?
----
:'Cabbie': ''[playing ethnic music with no words]'' Do you guys like this music?
:'''Kar''', 'Monk': ...Yea!
:'Cabbie': It's the bomb diggity.
:''[phone rings]''
:'Cabbie': Excuse me I have to talk to my baby-mamma-to-be.
----
:'Monk': Water that is too pure has no fish.
----
:'Master': Monk: You defeated an army of enemies while a flock of crane circled above. You battled for love in the palace of jade. You freed brothers you never knew with a family you never had.
----
:'Monk': ''[of Kar]'' For some reason, I believe he has potential.
----
:'Strucker': Monk, you may be good, but you are not bulletproof.
----
:'Strucker': I don't like Monkeys.

References to other movies

★ Kaidan (1964) - Chow Yun Fat's kanji tattoos resemble those in the episode 'Hoichi the earless' from kwaidan.

★ Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) - The heroes are pursued by nazis bent on superpowers granted from an artifact.

★ Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) - The opening fight is reminiscent of the bridge sequence from Indiana Jones.

External links

★ Official website

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★ ''Bulletproof Monk'' at Box Office Mojo