Kung Fu Dunk (2008)

Great Film overall

Fantastic!

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Tagline: A much lesser attempt at recapturing the spirit of Shaolin Soccer… Review by Neo: Kung Fu Dunk follows the same route as one of HK's biggest movie in Shaolin Soccer, but the results is totally another story. While the aforementioned flick starred the arguable the biggest Hong Kong superstar, Kung Fu Dunk have Taiwan's own favourite son in singer turned actor, Jay Chow. Combining kung fu with sports is no longer something new and the result providing the audience with an average mindless entertainment. While Shaolin Soccer is a classic three act underdog story, Kung Fu Dunk goes like a roller-coaster rides but without the thrills in between. Sure, some fun can be had and the duo chemistry in Eric Tsang and Jay Chow is even at times touching, but this is by no means a great movie at all.Jay Chow is a stoic actor and in other words he is like a piece of wood. His face is expressionless and while he once claimed that he wanted to be become the next Jet Li, it is fast becoming more of a dream than reality. Li is a stoic actor, but not one without emotions, one classic example is Li performance in Hero. On the outlook his performance is that of wooden, but looking closely his eyes contained deeper motivations as he confronted the King. Needless to say, Li is now a Best Actor in his acclaimed role in Warlords, and if Chow wants to become anywhere near his ambition, he will need to learn and reflect upon his method of acting. Despite sharing the same surname as Stephen Chow, Jay is no comedian and while he is easily likable, he does not oozes the same level of charisma as say Li or the much more famous Chow counterpart.Perhaps the film unlikely saving grace comes in the form of veteran Eric Tsang, in what is most likely his best role since Infernal Affairs. Tsang is a flawed character, yet he is sympathetic and probably the only person in the whole movie that seemed human and real. He is greedy, selfish, but deep down he is sentimental and his belief in Jay till the very end allows the audience to relate to his human character, rather than special effects. Tsang lifts up this film from bad to average and for that Mr. Tsang take a bow. While the cover of the atrocious Dangerous Games claimed that his performance there was better than Comrades: A Love Story, maybe the cover designer was referring to this movie.Charlene Choi also appears in the flick, but in the end, she really has nothing to do other than look cute, promote that style of glasses, act cute and be cute. With her counterpart Gillian now in seclusion, it is now up to Charlene to stand up by herself. It is disappointing to witness Choi in such an insignificant role, especially after her Hong Kong Film Critics award winning performance in Simply Actors.At the end of the day, the real reason why Kung Fu Dunk did not work is really pointing at the producers and director. The overuse of crappy special effects is one huge downfall and adding to the mix is the unrealistic script based on a manga. Without forgetting, it is ultimately the director's (Kevin Chu) fault in filming such crappy basketball sequences. As a basketball player for almost 14 years (despite the fact that Neo is not a good player still), the film lack any sort of tactical awareness or the "never give up" spirit that is required in competitive basketball. Without being a big head, this movie did reminded Neo of a little over 7 years ago that he was once in the school basketball team which reached the State Grand Final. In the final, Neo lifted up his game and played the best basketball he has ever played. Despite losing in the final, Neo holds no regrets, as we played our best as a team and as an individual. Even though 7 years on, he may never have another chance to reach those heights again, that feeling and emotion of playing in a grand final is priceless.All in all, Kung Fu Dunk is at best, a mindless entertainment, but even so, it is just an average one. It is a shame that it cannot be what it intended to be (namely Shaolin Soccer), and with technology 7 years on since that little Stephen Chow movie, it is just not good enough. Jay Chow has done extremely well as a debutant director in Secret, but here his acting has become all too familiar. There is no doubt that he did not deserve the Best New Artist Award for Initial D, where Anthony Wong commented so strongly. Still, it is really just yet another average Hong Kong movie, but once again, it is really the case of what could have been. So what's next on the menu? Kung Fu Tennis sounds utterly original… (Neo 2008) I rate it 5.5/10www.thehkneo.com

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.

This project was originally conceived as the movie version of popular Japanese manga SlamDunk! and that's not something new to Jay Chou, who made his movie debut playing a character from another wildly popular manga Initial D. Along the way, it was decided to incorporate some kung fu into the movie, so hence the title, even if the idea wasn't very original, with Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer coming to mind with martial arts and ball games combined.However, and thankfully, those scenes where kung fu actually influenced the games were kept to a bare minimum, and in Kung Fu Dunk, really quite unnecessary, because they don't add much to the plot nor drum up much excitement, and at most offered some cheap laughs and reminisced about the time when Stephen Chow used kung fu in football games. Jay Chou is comfortable in his role as a martial artist Fang Shi-jie since it's not the first time he fought using martial arts (Curse of the Golden Flower anyone?), and under the stunt direction of Ching Siu-Tung, he was made to look really believable as he trashes countless of gangsters in a bar as seen in the trailer, just to let you know who's boss.That was almost why his character is made a kung fu practitioner, and for the fact of giving him an excuse for being a top shot, able to shoot the hoops from practically any angle. And with Eric Tsang as a small time hustler Chen-Li who sees his potential and becomes his agent, he joins a university to play varsity basketball, but not without the initial objection of team captain Ting-wei (Chen Bo-Lin) and team star Xiao-lan (Baron Chen, in his big-screen debut). But you know with team members on the same side, it's not before long they combine their strengths to take on adversaries on the basketball court.And I will stick my neck out to say that this movie is to basketball just as how Goal was to football. It made the sport look good because of its charismatic characters, despite them dripping so much coolness and aloofness on the courts. Here, special effects and wire-work were employed to make the actors seem like professionals who can take out a top side in the NBA league, and in all honesty, really looked stunning, especially when they mimic various dunking moves, and performing combo-moves thanks to technology and stunt work. So in actuality, the kung fu elements don't really have to be in the movie. The stunt work itself will be able to justify most of the moves as they're quite grounded to reality, only having you to suspend belief that boys of average height have springs in their feet to leap that height for a professional dunk.Pity too that the number of games were only a handful, with the time spent on plenty of subplots, but each were loosely developed and flitted in and out of the story as and when they please. Things like the abandoned Shi-jie's quest to use the basketball games to get his parents to one day attend them, that of gangsterism penetrating and influencing games, and his love life with Charlene Choi in yet another flower vase role just to look good and do nothing else. Everyone's acting a little too cool, leaving little room for main characters to add depth. One of the key themes here is the realization of the importance of teamwork rather than on individual talent and ability, and it could have been brought out much stronger if the players themselves interacted a lot more off the court, than only on it, and during competitive games, apart from the high-fives and friendly passes.With the US$10 million budget, it is easy to see where the money went to - the effects, in particular, a massive fantasy sequence at a crucial point in the movie. It's quite flawless, nice to look at and probably justifiable on its quality alone, but again I like to emphasize, that even without those elements, the basketball stunts itself would still make this a decent movie with nifty basketball moves. And having Jay Chou playing for your team is a big boost to any hopes of a box office success.

First, the plot was flat, his raise into famous in this movie was not explained how. From an orphan into famous basketball player. Second, the video effects was mediocre. The movie was concentrating in impossible style of basketball, die hard basketball fans wont happy to see this. No real basketball play in this film maybe (if you say its about kungfu, its not kungfu either, its too ridiculous). I'm a fans of Jay Chou but I sad to see him play a bad movie like this. Secret and Curse of the Golden Flower were a nice movie. I watched those and i'm impress by his acting skill (which is improving since Initial D, esp in Secret). THE ENDING? Jay release a kungfu aura to stop time to won the game against rival. What the? Was that a kungfu? Maybe for popcorn movie this is quite entertaining but for real movie, I'm sorry its not. Watch Secret and Curse of Golden Flower instead for Jay's fans.