The Shrine

<div style='font: 10pt arial; text-align: left; '>Hoo boy, stupidest movie EVER. The storyline was cliched crap that filled me with the overwhelming urge to bash my head against the wall to make the hurting stop.

Fortunately the action scenes kicked ass, so I was not forced to set fire to the theater and those within in an act of humane compassion. The action scenes really were quite good, much better than the fight scenes in Romeo Must Die. Jet Li pretty much makes the entire French police force, including their feared anti-terrorist unit, his personal bitches.

Plus the villain is played by Fusche from Bad Boys. "Don't fuck with my timetable!" =). See it as a matinee or rent it so you can fast forward through anything that doesn't involve Jet Li punching people in the face.</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>I only mention the plot because it is so unbelievably terrible. I mean, it is ####ing bad even for mindless karate beat-em-ups. How does a pregnant single mother from the country get lured into prostitution by a Frenchman CIA/police agent? Or isn't it just a wonderful coincidence how the country whore who got lured by the French guy and who saw the increminating murder just happens to work at the exact same street corner as the Chinese sleeper agent where Jet Li happens to to be staying. Kiss of the Dragon provides an explanation...sorta.
Anyway, this bad French guy shoots so many people (including a few innocent bystanders) in broad daylight that it's a wonder that he feels any danger from the incriminating videotape Jet Li's character holds at all. This guy could apparently get away with shooting the Pope in broad daylight and he still wouldn't be arrested.

Anyway, onto the action. Much of the action was pretty sweet, but there were a couple of scenes that could have been edited better. One of my favorite scenes was a tribute to Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon". Good stuff, but waaaay too short. Also, this fight he has with these guys who look like Double Dragon stage bosses was pretty good. (In fact, all of his one-on-one and one-on-two fights looked like fights with Double Dragon stage bosses).

Overall, it's barely OK mindless summer fun, that could have been much better mindless summer fun.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt arial; text-align: justify; '>With all the Kung-Fu movies I've seen, I felt the whole thing was top-notch. This one more than makes up for the boring crap that "Romeo Must Die" ended up being.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>The only one I can name with a plot that comes anywhere near decent is Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. You don't go to see a Kung-fu movie for the plot, you go to see it for the fucking amazing shit the guys pull off. I only saw the last 15 minutes or so of Kiss of the Dragon so far, but it was one of the most badass 15 minutes of a movie I've seen in a while. That was beautiful the way he killed the villain - so beautiful, in fact, that his falling to the ground was joined by an patron in the theatre declaring that "that was FUCKING AWESOME!" : )</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>Romeo Must Die was all THAT bad. It was a "eh" film, but not horrible. Just "eh". I did like KotD action much better than Romeo Must Die's though because of the lack of wires.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt arial; text-align: left; '>Consider yourself lucky you only saw the last 15 minutes =). I definitely agree the last 15 minutes are bad ass, but this movie had a horrible plot even for a kung fu movie. If it weren't for the action scenes easing my pain I would have ended up like the villain.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt arial; text-align: left; '>KoD's fights had much better choreography to boot. In terms of martial arts action I think this is Jet Li's best American film to date (Once Upon a Time in China and America doesn't count =).</div>

<div style='font: 9pt arial; text-align: justify; '>Chock, I think you're either over-exaggerating, or you have the most ridiculous standards for a Kung-Fu movie I've ever seen in my life.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial; text-align: left; '>I glanced in the theater on the way to another movie, saw Bridget Fonda peeing in a doorway, and walked right back out.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt arial; text-align: left; '>Bridget Fonda's acting made my eyes bleed.</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>hahaha! Bridget Fonda soaked up way too much screentime...That was Chockboard's favorite scene....I don't think she actually peed though...</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>I blamed the writing way more than her. She was pretty much a waste of screen space. They should have gone with a much less known name....not that Bridget is draw herself...</div>

<div style='font: 9pt arial; text-align: justify; '>I actually agree with you on that. I still maintain that the movie was top-notch, though.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Haven't you ever seen any other Jet Li movies? Or any Jackie Chan movies for that matter? All the plots of these movies are vomit-inducing.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>"over-exaggerrate" is redundant and contains unnecessary repetition</div>

<div style='font: 10pt arial; text-align: left; '>Don't get me wrong, I liked KoD and thought it was pretty good, but you have to admit there was a lot of useless cliched characterization going on there. I'm just saying couldn't we have done away with Bridget Fonda's character and focused on Jet Li kicking french people in the head?

There are a lot of movies out there with far better pacing and plots than KoD. Wing Chun, Drunken Master II, and Fist of Legend come to mind.

On the other end of the spectrum there's movies like Once Upon a Time in China, which just dragged on and on and threw in about a million different plotlines. But even then you didn't have quite as many plotholes as KoD.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Well, I guess I'll wait till I see the rest before I tell you you're insane again</div>

<div style='font: 10pt arial; text-align: left; '>I might be overreacting of course. I think there's something about the movie not only being in English but WRITTEN by Americans that makes the cheesiness less enduring. Alternatively, the story isn't bad ENOUGH. It's not quite campy enough to be fun, it's just stupid.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>I dunno...I consider Jackie Chan's Western (US) films, you know--his non-dubbed English films with American plots (like Rush Hour), to be pretty damn funny. Shanghi (sp!) Noon was awesome!</div>

<div style='font: bold 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I liked Rush Hour a lot. Looking forward to the sequel.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>I think I might see what you're saying about the American writers vs. the Chinese though. You'd think that with the money this country puts into our entertainment industry we'd at least be able to do better than that.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt arial; text-align: left; '>I thought that whole "farm girl from North Dakota" stuff was pretty bad, but yeah, I think it IS just because I (foolishly) expect more from American writers. Like I said, Jet Li hitting french people in the head made up for it.</div>