Kung Fu Dunk
February. 07,2008Shi-Jie is a brilliant martial artist from the Kung Fu School. One day, he encounters a group of youths playing basketball and shows off how easy it is for him, with his martial arts training, to do a Slam Dunk. Watching him was Chen-Li, a shrewd businessman, who recruits him to play varsity basketball at the local university.
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Reviews
Good story, Not enough for a whole film
For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!
Blistering performances.
The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.
First of all, I have to say that the Cine Asia DVD cover promises more than the movie actually delivers. Which just goes to prove, don't judge a movie by its cover."Kung Fu Dunk" is a combination of basketball, Kung Fu and a semi-romantic love story thrown into the midst. The end result was entertaining enough. However, the movie didn't really fully get a chance to spread out its wings and be all that it could have been. The movie just brushed over the various topics on the storyline on the surface. And that was a shame, because if the director had delved more into the depths of some topics instead of trying to be everywhere at once, then the movie would have had much more impact, depth and meaning. Personally, I found the movie to be good entertainment, but it was a rather shallow story, because it never took time to go into depths with the topics.The action scenes were nicely shot, and the Kung Fu scenes were really well choreographed and looked nice. The basketball scenes, however, well they were great, it was like you were there on the court with the players. One thing that really didn't fit well into the movie, despite it was amazing to look at and funny, was when the four Kung Fu masters entered the basketball court and started fighting the Fireball team. Sure it looked nice and there was a lot of nice effects, but come on, it was just too much.Being a long-time fan of Asian cinema, then it was really nice to see some of the big guns from Hong Kong cinema appear in a Mandarin Chinese movie. I haven't seen Eric Tsang (playing Zhen Li) in a long, long time, so it was a nice treat to get to see him on the screen again. He always brings some comical charm with him to the movies he is in. And of course you had Hong Kong cutie, Charlene Choi (playing Lily), as well and despite having a minor role she actually did it great, because it was a step away from her usual sugar-coated late-teen love romance roles (and it was nice to see her in a movie without Gillian Chung around). Finally, in a small cameo role, you had huge Hong Kong movie star from back in the day, Kenneth Tsang (playing Wang Yiwuan). His role was very small, but still, just his presence there was awesome.The movie's main actor, Jay Chou (playing Fang Shijie) was really carrying the movie mostly by himself. He was really well-cast for this role and he did a great job with his character."Kung Fu Dunk" suffered from a half-hearted storyline that never explored its potential, and that was a shame, because the movie really had potential for so much more.If you liked "Shaolin Soccer", then the chances are that you will like "Kung Fu Dunk" as well, though this movie is not as good as "Shaolin Soccer". But still, it is entertaining and fun to watch.
Just finished watching the movie and wanted to give my own opinion(and justice) to the movie.First of all, to get things straight, this movie is not pretending to be anything other than a solid action comedy movie. It doesn't aim to revolutionize the movie industry and garner critical acclaims nor does it want to be regarded as one. If you really want to enjoy this movie to the fullest, I suggest you discard your critical-mindedness and your longing for a good plot because you won't find any in here. With that established, let us further into the movie.I had low expectations for this movie simply because it didn't have a strong plot(Yes, moviegoers, I underrated this movie as well), but I never expected myself to enjoy this movie that much. I even enjoyed this more than the Stephen Chow flicks(which I find Kung Fu Hustle to be his best effort and would've rated it a 9 as well). Action is tight and epic while comedy chokes on to the right places.SPOILERS alert, I think The action might be unreal, but why would I want to watch a serious basketball movie anyways? There are a lot other sports movies(drama) that already did it well, why create another? SPOILERS endI'm not even sure why you're reading this. Go ahead and watch it. Just remember, no thinking - just watch, enjoy, smile, laugh, and Every once in a while they(the movie industry) creates masterpieces such as Pulp Fiction or The Godfather movies, and sometimes they create movies which are better off in the pile of dump. I'm not saying Kung Fu Dunk deserves the recognition that the previous examples have, then again, if we're talking about Stephen Chow-ish comedy, this one's a top ten.Highly recommended if you love: -no brainer movies with really good action -Kung Fu -Death Trance -Kung Fu and comedy -what the heck, watch this. you'll have a great time.9/10 for you the cast of Kung Fu Dunk. ^_^
A mess of genres but it's mainly based on Stephen Chow's genre mash-ups for it's inspiration. There's magic kung-fu, college romance, sports, gangster action and some weepy melodrama for a topping. The production is excellent and the pacing is fast so it's easy to get past the many flaws in this film.A baby is abandoned next to a basketball court. A homeless man brings him to a Shaolin monastery that's in the middle of a city along with a special kung fu manual that the homeless man somehow has but can't read. The old monk teaches the boy but expires when he tries to master the special technique in the manual. The school is taken over by a phony kung fu master who is assisted by four wacky monks. The new master gets mad at the now 20+ year old boy for not pretending to be hurt by the master's weak punches and throws him out for the night. The boy is found throwing garbage into a basket from an incredible distance by a man who bring him to a gangster's club to play darts. This leads to a big fight, the boy's expulsion from the monastery and the man's decision to turn the boy into a college basketball sensation.Al this happens in the first 20 minutes with most of it happening in the first 10 minutes. Aside from the extreme shorthand storytelling the first problem is how little we get to know the main character until way into the movie. The man who uses the boy is more sharply defined by the time the first third is over. The plot follows no new ground except for the insane action climax of the film. I'm sure you can easily imagine how the wacky monks will show up towards the end. The effects, photography and stunt work are all top- notch and make up for the uninspired plot. Stephen Chow has a much better command of plot and comedy writing and this film will live in his shadow but that's not a good reason to ignore it. It's quite entertaining even with a scatter-shot ending. Recommended.
Lot of silly plot holes in the film. First we see him watching his master practice kung-fu, and die in the midst of his practice. That's fine with me. And then at the end of the film, we see him use the kung-fu that he learned just by watching his master when he was still a kid. Is that even possible? I don't think so.This show is purely for Jay Chou fans, and the film lacks a depth in terms of character development, cinematography styles and unfolding of plot.Anybody notice that the captain of the basket team (forgot his name) and the idolized player Li Xiao look so similar to each other, to the extent that you'd think they were the one and same person? Long hair, sunshine-boy look, tall and strong. The two of them looked like they came out from a mass production factory designed to churn out products that makes teenage girls scream wild in orgasm. Not that those two actors had anything of value to contribute to the movie as a whole for the movie industry at all.The jokes were lame and not funny at all.The scene with regards to the 4 masters of Jay Chou coming back to help him out in the basketball court, degenerated into a pointless plot when they started bashing their opponents ala Royal Rumble style. Worse of all, when the 4 masters won the fight, the crowd began cheering, and the match continued. It was truly a WTF? moment.At the end of the show, when they win the match, all thanks to Jay Chou's excellent kung fu skills. How he acquired those kung-fu skills is a mystery, because the show somehow shows him acquiring the skills just by observing his master.And then his long-lost father comes out of the woodwork to acknowledge Jay Chou as his long-lost son seemed just a tad too quick of the director to wrap up the film.In short, this is a Jay Chou-flick (instead of the usual "chick flick"). Watch it only if Jay Chou is your fan. If you are one of those whose tastes in movies coincide greatly with those in the list of IMDb's top 250 films of all time, then this film is not for you.