Jackie Chan and Jet Li join forces to release a masterpiece with a few flaws, but nothing to discourage anyone from seeing this movie. These two friends that have been waiting to make a movie together have dual starring roles in this epic adventure of action and mythical chemistries. Jackie Chan plays an elderly Bostonian shopkeeper and a “drunken master” for who wine is an elixir of strength. But he demonstrates more than just the drunken fist. Li plays a monk well-versed in the martial arts and, even more magnificently, appears as the wiry, mischievous Monkey King, a mythical Chinese figure with the ability to transform himself into 72 different animals or objects. The Monkey King is part of the immortals in this movie. He is invincible after fighter all takers and never losing. It is only after another immortal tricks him that he is cast stone but before being cast into stone he casts his famous fighting pole away as the key to release himself from his stone prison. And their starts the story.
I was a little disappointed with all the wire work in the beginning of this story. I remember thinking not another fake martial arts story with people being able to walk walls and jump onto 10 story building with one leap, but after the first scene there wasn’t much more of this. Most of the fight scenes looked very authentic and took a lot of skill to perform. Jackie and Jet Li skills are flawless with skills that are extraordinary to say the least. Even if the fight scenes were scripted it would still take a lot of skill to make every scene look like the individual has been doing the art for all their lives.
As for blood and gore, this movie did not have a lot of this. Not to say there wasn’t any but it was minimum and well placed. Personally I loved this movie. Not because I am a martial arts fan, but mainly because it had a very good story line that made some sense. I would truly recommend this movie for rental or watching it while it is in the movie theaters. It is extraordinary on the big screen.