What a confusing movie.

I watched this movie with Dove, David, Tomoko and Yurika. We arrived late kasi we kept on waiting (and looking for) Jerick to show up, (ang joke ko e he was standing sideways, kaya di namin makita :P), so when we got in the cinemas and saw a bunch of American kids talking, I thought - "Hey, I think the movie hasn't started yet!"

Then Jackie Chan showed up under lots of makeup, and I went, "Oh, shit, they didn't..." and then the kid from Will and Grace got teleported back into ancient China, and I went NO WAI.

So, yeah, turns out this was a Hollywood movie. WTF.

The talking parts were boring. Especially since they forced Jackie Chan and Jet Li to go speak in English for most of the fucking movie. TAKE NOTE, THIS PART OF THE MOVIE IS SUPPOSED TO BE SET IN ANCIENT CHINA. Ack.

My suspension of disbelief just couldn't take the fact that all the plot-relevant characters knew how to speak English, just for the convenience of the time-displaced American protagonist and (supposedly) for the audiences' as well. Well, it doesn't work. Jet Li can't speak convincingly in English and Jackie Chan loses a lot of his charm in English. They actually were funny without being forced while they had a subtitled exchange.

I wish the kid had just woken up in Ancient China, and realized he could speak (and understand) Chinese fluently. Argh.

Anyway, the fight scenes are good here. The Jet Li/Jackie Chan fight that's in the middle is fast, dirty, and makes good use of the scenery (which is, I think, an illness of most Hollywood fight scenes - they act like they're on a Tekken 1 style infinite arena.) And the American kid manages to acquit himself in the fight scenes. I nearly choked at the way they shoved the Sparrow Girl's backstory, though. Ugh, that was one ugly piece of storytelling. Things rolled out in a fairly predictable manner, but I particularly love any scene with Ni-Chang, the white-haired assassin in it. She's a riot to watch and listen to, especially since she uses some pretty unconventional weapons in her fight.

Overall, a movie with a mostly mediocre plot and really good fight scenes. Watch it only if you're into kung-fu movies, otherwise you'll be disappointed.