I saw this at my local Redbox. Rented it and regretted it, it bored the bejeesus out of me.
SPOILERS.
This is basically where a 16 y.o. Chinese kid idolizes Jackie Chan and wants to meet him. Pretty standard plot but it's not like Forbidden Kingdom with some fantastical story. He lives in Indonesia with his grandmother and doing bad in school, particularly in Chinese. For whatever reason, he gets sent to his other grandparent's place to learn in Beijing.
After his plane lands, he forgoes going to his grandparent's place and takes off to meet Jackie Chan. This detour includes a rural temple where he meets the temple owner and her daughter, having his wallet stolen by a gang whose matron takes a liking to him due to him being the spitting image of her dead brother, and then being taken hostage by the same gang, and him staying by the female cop who eventually saves him. After he runs from her (wearing her uniform, Jackie Chan is in town and he wants to get near the event), his disguise as a cop is foiled when a random woman asks for directions and he can't read the map. He has a run-in with the gang boss and the female cop spots them: she manages to handcuff the gang boss to a structure but she is beaten within an inch of her life until the boy intervenes and is on the verge of hysteria of bringing her to the hospital.
The cop is comatose and the police bring boy to the Grandparents. They see something about a new movie studio on TV, they bring him there but is rebuffed nicely by the security guard. He tells his overbearing grandmother off when she mentions studying. He goes in the back where they cast extras, gets picked, and predictably gets booted off the set when he keeps asking when he'll meet Jacky. No surprise, this kid has been an impatient jackass throughout.
His grandmother connives her way into the VIP area and stumbles into Jackie Chan without realizing it, and Jackie plays up to his nice guy image (which would be impractical in real life). The kid ends up getting to see one of Jackie's action sequences being filmed, Jackie asks his reason for being a disciple, boy says revenge against his schoolmates, and Jackie goes into schtick about how Kung Fu is not about that. Jackie promises the boy if he improves his grades, he'll take him on as a disciple. They take picture with Jackie's camera which he promises to send with improved grades.
The kid goes back home thankful to grandparents and more obedient. End closes out that he improves his grades, and to prove to his peers about meet Jackie, he calls and after a belated pause, gets the photo sent to him. End.
It was fine for a kid's film, but by the new title "Jackie Chan: Kung Fu Master" I expected a Jackie Chan film, not 5 minutes of him.
When Jackie Chan finally did come up, it was anti-climatic and boring, and the whole last 10 minutes felt like a studying public service announcement for China. It also made me question Chinese Kanji system if a 16 y.o. kid who is getting Cs has problems reading anything throughout but that's another debate.
What is most depressing about this film is that the kid could have given a shot of real emotional connection with any of the three unrelated females (temple daughter, matron, cop) but just as the film started getting any depth, the kid moved on with his quest. It would have been particularly interesting if the cop, which the movie never revisits despite her dire situation and him seeming to care about her in the end, would have trained him in martial arts at the end and the Jackie Chan thing abandoned as a message about real life heroes vs celebrity. (When the movie introduces her, it shows her beating 2-3 colleagues in the gym, and when he tells her of his Jackie Chan dream, she scoffs at it being fake movie crap unusable in real life.) But alas, it drearily plodded along to its cookie cutter ending.
SPOILERS.
This is basically where a 16 y.o. Chinese kid idolizes Jackie Chan and wants to meet him. Pretty standard plot but it's not like Forbidden Kingdom with some fantastical story. He lives in Indonesia with his grandmother and doing bad in school, particularly in Chinese. For whatever reason, he gets sent to his other grandparent's place to learn in Beijing.
After his plane lands, he forgoes going to his grandparent's place and takes off to meet Jackie Chan. This detour includes a rural temple where he meets the temple owner and her daughter, having his wallet stolen by a gang whose matron takes a liking to him due to him being the spitting image of her dead brother, and then being taken hostage by the same gang, and him staying by the female cop who eventually saves him. After he runs from her (wearing her uniform, Jackie Chan is in town and he wants to get near the event), his disguise as a cop is foiled when a random woman asks for directions and he can't read the map. He has a run-in with the gang boss and the female cop spots them: she manages to handcuff the gang boss to a structure but she is beaten within an inch of her life until the boy intervenes and is on the verge of hysteria of bringing her to the hospital.
The cop is comatose and the police bring boy to the Grandparents. They see something about a new movie studio on TV, they bring him there but is rebuffed nicely by the security guard. He tells his overbearing grandmother off when she mentions studying. He goes in the back where they cast extras, gets picked, and predictably gets booted off the set when he keeps asking when he'll meet Jacky. No surprise, this kid has been an impatient jackass throughout.
His grandmother connives her way into the VIP area and stumbles into Jackie Chan without realizing it, and Jackie plays up to his nice guy image (which would be impractical in real life). The kid ends up getting to see one of Jackie's action sequences being filmed, Jackie asks his reason for being a disciple, boy says revenge against his schoolmates, and Jackie goes into schtick about how Kung Fu is not about that. Jackie promises the boy if he improves his grades, he'll take him on as a disciple. They take picture with Jackie's camera which he promises to send with improved grades.
The kid goes back home thankful to grandparents and more obedient. End closes out that he improves his grades, and to prove to his peers about meet Jackie, he calls and after a belated pause, gets the photo sent to him. End.
It was fine for a kid's film, but by the new title "Jackie Chan: Kung Fu Master" I expected a Jackie Chan film, not 5 minutes of him.
When Jackie Chan finally did come up, it was anti-climatic and boring, and the whole last 10 minutes felt like a studying public service announcement for China. It also made me question Chinese Kanji system if a 16 y.o. kid who is getting Cs has problems reading anything throughout but that's another debate.
What is most depressing about this film is that the kid could have given a shot of real emotional connection with any of the three unrelated females (temple daughter, matron, cop) but just as the film started getting any depth, the kid moved on with his quest. It would have been particularly interesting if the cop, which the movie never revisits despite her dire situation and him seeming to care about her in the end, would have trained him in martial arts at the end and the Jackie Chan thing abandoned as a message about real life heroes vs celebrity. (When the movie introduces her, it shows her beating 2-3 colleagues in the gym, and when he tells her of his Jackie Chan dream, she scoffs at it being fake movie crap unusable in real life.) But alas, it drearily plodded along to its cookie cutter ending.