It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

I saw this film under the title JACKIE CHAN & THE KUNG FU KID. It's a Chinese propaganda piece, shot in Beijing, and designed to pass on ideals of behaviour to 'educate' audiences. Thus the tale is about an obnoxious 15 year old boy who mistreats his family and friends in a bid to meet up with his all-time favourite star, Jackie Chan. Inevitably he learns some important life lessons along the way, not least from Jackie himself.I suppose 2009 must have marked the year that Jackie became heavily involved with the Chinese government. I notice that this film was put out by the Beijing-based Children's Film Studio, which has been making propaganda films for children since the 1980s. The story of the film isn't so bad but the execution is; this is a very cheap production barely above the Z-grade shot-on-video level.The main characters are all very dull and their acting abilities limited. The moralising is so heavy-handed as to be off-putting. Jackie himself gets to take part in a few fight scenes, but rather unforgivably he appears to be doubled more than a few times, which is a definite no-no for fans of the martial artist. My favourite scene is a nice cameo from old-timer Jackie co-star Yuen Wah, playing himself.

I love Jackie Chan as an actor, so I was pretty psyched to pick this one up at Redbox. I thought I was in for some awesome Jackie Chan action.. Boy, was I wrong. Putting Jackie Chan in big letters across the title and even having him on the cover is pretty much false advertising. The whole movie is about some whiny kid who looks for Jackie, finds him (Jackie gets about 5 minutes of screen time), and then the movie ends. Out of all the movies I've ever watched, I'd place it in the bottom 5. It's that bad. Save your dollar for something else.

I've recently gone back to re-watch EVERY Jackie Chan film, even one's like this where he just has a small role. To be sure, he is featured more here than some other cameo appearances, but even for a die-hard Chan fan, it's not worthwhile.This "film" is just all kinds of horrible. There is literally no aspect that doesn't suck. It looks like it was made for TV, and two directors can't find anything original to do, they just copy well-worn shots and angles and make even Chan's fighting look slow and amateurish. To boot, many shots of him don't clearly show his face, so I don't know, it might even have been a double doing some of the stunts?? If you get Chan to appear in your movie for 5 minutes, you'd show his face as much as possible, right?!The script by about 8 writers also has nothing new to say, nothing interesting, and more importantly, no characters to identify with. The main kid is so unlikable that I was praying one of his horrible decisions would end up killing him, as he's incredibly immature and stupid even considering he's 15. The adults in the film are all rash and unsympathetic, also making a string of foolish decisions. The film wants to show some kind of coming-of-age adventure, but the main kid doesn't grow or mature, and nobody else really helps to guide him. They just yell at him to learn manners and then give in to him anyway. Even Jackie isn't the best role model as he gives in easily.And finally, the action. Well, the film tries to give you lots, but it's all weak, slow, motion-blurred for effect, and unoriginal. No point in watching for that.Worst of all, the film is basically a propaganda piece for China, trying to show the awe of it's modernization, the beautiful women doing important work everywhere, the generosity of Jackie and all civil servants, the new technology and buildings everywhere, and of course the impeccable Chinese manners and morality. It's all such one-sided BS that I couldn't stand it. Anyone who's spent much time in China will easily see what I'm talking about. With crappy music, acting, editing, and everything else, there is absolutely no reason to watch this. If you want to see the real glory of China, there are plenty of other films that represent it greatly. There are also plenty of other Chan films worth watching. This one is just punishment.

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.