Bulletproof Monk (2003)

Chow Yun-Fat is one of the most magnetic screen presences to ever come out of Hong Kong cinema. Watch him in A Better Tomorrow and you'll see exactly what I mean: grace, authority, danger, all at once. So when I tell you that Bulletproof Monk wastes him almost completely, I want you to understand how genuinely depressing that is.

Here's the setup: a monk who has guarded a powerful scroll for sixty-odd years must find the right successor before a Nazi war criminal and his granddaughter get their hands on it. That's actually a workable premise for a fun, daft action film. There's room there for some proper kung fu mythology, maybe a bit of genuine wisdom tucked between the fight scenes, a mentor and student story with some actual weight to it. Instead, what we get is Chow Yun-Fat reduced to a mystical MacGuffin dispenser, spouting fortune cookie philosophy while the film expects us to find Sean William Scott's loudmouth streetwise thief charming enough to carry the whole thing. I didn't.

Scott is doing exactly what Scott always does: brash, wisecracking, physically unimpressive, running entirely on attitude. In the right film, that energy can work. Here, it just highlights the absurdity of asking us to believe this bloke is the chosen protector of an ancient and sacred scroll. There's no martial arts skill, no gravitas, no earned transformation. He just sort of bumbles forward until the plot decides he's ready. And Jaime King, who I genuinely think could have been interesting with anything to actually do, is stuck playing "mysterious girl with a map." Three mismatched action figures, smashed together, and someone called it a movie.

Even if you go in with low expectations and you're happy to treat this as a trashy Hollywood kung fu romp, it still fails on the basics. The action is poorly shot and edited, hiding its limitations behind frantic cutting rather than letting the choreography breathe. The CGI looks cheap even by early 2000s standards. The tone lurches between slapstick comedy and po-faced mysticism without ever finding a comfortable register for either. I thought about Daredevil, released the same year, and how that film at least occasionally committed to its own daftness. Bulletproof Monk can't even manage that. It's neither good enough to take seriously nor enjoyable enough to laugh with.

What really stings is that the spiritual and philosophical elements, the stuff that could have given the film some actual texture, are treated as pure decoration. The scroll, the prophecy, the ancient traditions: all of it is window dressing for slapstick set pieces and CGI nonsense. There's no real interest in what any of it might mean, or in using the kung fu genre as a lens for anything worthwhile. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon showed Hollywood exactly how to blend action and philosophy and genuine emotional depth. Bulletproof Monk looked at that and decided to go with pratfalls instead.

I don't mind a film being lightweight. I don't mind a film being silly. But I do mind a film being lazy, and this one is lazy from the ground up. No weight, no style, no soul. Just noise for ninety-odd minutes, and the lingering frustration of watching a genuinely brilliant actor handed almost nothing to do with his time.

One and a half stars. A cheap, forgettable mess, and Chow Yun-Fat deserved so much better than this.

Rating: ★½  | Year: 2003  | Watched: 2025-10-09

View on Letterboxd →

Where to watch

Watch in the US
Stream: fuboTV · MGM+ Amazon Channel · Philo · MGM Plus Roku Premium Channel
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.

Related on Movies With Macca

More with Chow Yun-Fat: A Better Tomorrow (1986)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)