Short Review: Crappy Tiger, Napping Dragon


Visually, this is an absolute stunner... the rest of the film, well, it is a tad spotty. I've gotten more coherent storylines out of my three-year-old daughter after she has stayed up too late because had too much sugar.

The film will suffer from translation issues for many Western audiences - by that I mean cultural translation, not dialog. This is a Chinese film and its approach is from that worldview. There are many elements that may be out of sorts for Westerners. Even pardoning the cultural divide, this story is still a bomb.

The recognition of a good plot is innate in all people, despite their cultural and geographic background. It doesn’t matter where the story comes from. If the story speaks to the human condition, it will speak to anyone who watches it. This story suffers from a slack central conflict which leads to a soulless final act.


Attention Jet-Li, it's time to go. Yeah, he can kick his legs and hops up and down, big deal. If he were making cheesy martial arts movies like he should be, I wouldn’t care. He’s been given some big movies however and this guy can’t act and has zero personality. He actually makes watching a human being beat the living snot of another human being boring. I’m not a film producer and I’m not an expert in marketing, but I’m certain you want the fight scenes to induce some sense of excitement in your audience.

Bottom line, when I see Jet-Li fighting I always end up wanting to see him beating up his acting coach.

If you have to see this thing, rent the DVD and turn off the sound. There is no other way to enjoy this film.


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Labels: Chinese cinema, Donnie Yen, film, Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, movie review, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Ziyi Zhang