Kung Fu Yoga

Jackie Chan should be studied in media courses at university. He is by far the biggest example of a downfall by a global star. He made action masterpieces in the 80s and 90s. Now he is making absolute rubbish like his latest Spring Festival release, the Chinese-Indian adventure comedy Kung Fu Yoga. Directed and written by Stanley Tong, a man once admired for action classics like Police Story 3: Supercop and Rumble in the Bronx, the film travels across China, the United Arab Emirates, and India, following Jackie (ingeniously named "Jack") and his group of archaeologist-explorers (including Indian Princesses played by the beauties Amyra Dastur and Disha Patani) to hunt down a jewel that will show them the path to the ancient treasure of Magadha. Much like Chan's previous explorer flick, Chinese Zodiac (also written by Tong), this film is very, very silly. And lazy. So much of the film uses visual effects (the entire pre-opening-credits scene shows an animated Chan battling ancient Indians). It makes the finished product feel incredibly tacky and ugly. The choreography is also overbearingly silly and repetitive. It seems to have been made through the eyes of an 8-year-old. Digitally-created lions, hyenas, wolves, and snakes are absolutely harmless animals (throwing snowballs will deter a pack of wolves). Fights are fun. Villains are incompetent. And dancing makes everything just hunky-dory!

I don't know why I put myself through these Jackie Chan experiences any longer. He has lost all desire to produce quality entertainment. Or quality humour. Or even quality stunts. It's all just so shit. It doesn't take itself seriously in the slightest. It is made purely for fun, but the fun is so stupid, and not endearing at all. I guess Chan doesn't have to try very hard anymore because his films are solely made to appeal to one audience; Mainland China. And as a movie-going audience they are not very demanding. As long as they get a few laughs and some hot, young, popular celebs/singers to fawn over, they're happy.

The silliness in Chinese Zodiac was tolerable, but my patience has ran out. Chan has no more "get out of jail free" cards.

D+

It's sad what happened to Jackie Chan. I mean, he's certainly not sad considering he is the 2nd best-paid actor in the world, two years in a row now, but still...

A lot of that is because he does more projects than most others on the list. I don't think, per film/project, he gets more than Damon, Cruise etc. But yeah, still, he doesn't care about quality anymore because he's putting Chinese bums on seats and filling his bank account at the same time.

Kung Fu Yoga is among the worst movies I have ever seen. Alternatingly amateurish and juvenile, it featured terrible acting and production. They couldn't even be bothered to write a new song for the Bollywood finale, instead recycling the song from Jackie's Chan's 2005 film The Myth. A total waste of time. *F*

I had very low expectations going into the film and I'm glad they were not met. That's not to say it's a good film, it's still far from it, but based on the trailer I expected the absolute worst and it's saved from that. What the film has going for it is that it doesn't take it self seriously and with that there's quite some fun to be found. The car chase scene is well done and there's other playful jokes that don't make it drag to sit through. Jackie has a pleasing appearance, like the whole cast actually, well they're pleasing to look at anyway. And that's pretty much all the film has going for it too. Otherwise it's a silly B-movie adventure highlighted by extremely poorly cast henchmen roles, Americans and Russian locally sourced in China it seems. The Chinese dubbing of the Indian cast is also terrible. It's not a good film, often it's even very bad, but it's lighthearted nature are what makes me give it a pass.

C-

This was terrible, but at times it luckily got better after that. As mentioned in my review, the effects laden car chase was well done I thought.



I don't think it really looks like he's doing more projects. I think he has a big producing hand in the film, and in whatever capacity, rakes in at least $20mil with every such Chinese branded project.

It was really narcissistic of Chan to also have that historical animated character resemble himself. But I also thought it was terrible at the time, however by the end of the film I realised that it was the best part!

I'm not certain for this particular film, but Jackie usually gives these roles to members of his stunt team, so I honestly doubt there were auditions for random foreigners across China.

I didn't see it yet. Any good?

The Myth is very similar in many ways to Kung Fu Yoga, but it's a much better film with a coherent and affecting story.

It is one of the only Chan films I've yet to see.

Have you had an opportunity to watch The Myth yet?

Nope.