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Jet Li's worst movies


DiP

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A sequel to the Donnie Yen thread. I've been searching for similar threads of the past and couldn't find any. Choose your picks... Here's mine:

Kids from Shaolin - Several of the fight scenes are great but gosh, the story is so boring and uninteresting (a huge step down from the original). I think I stopped watching after 30 min and just skimmed through all fight scenes

Last Hero in China - It's a Wong Jing movie... Whenever he puts his stamp on a trendy genre in a zany way then it's bound to suck. Save for the Gordin Liu and Alan Chui fight scenes, this is a waste of time.

Kung Fu Cult Master - Never got immersed by the hype surrounding this one, being a live-adaptation of the famous novel The Heaven Sword & Dragon Saber. Once again, Wong Jing distracts with his zany brand of direction despite being more serious in tone compared to the aforementioned movie. The fight scenes are great (especially the shaolin monk fight scene) but overall the movie didn't do anything for me.

High Risk - Another Wong Jing movie, and thereby another bad movie with good action (Jet Li vs Ben Lam). Why was Jet Li so fond of working with Wong Jing at the time?

Dr. Wai in "The Scripture With No Words" - The concept is fresh (going back and forth between modern and period times) but the whole execution made it very confusing and hard to enjoy. The action is good though. 

Once Upon a Time in China & America - This entry was unnecessary and bad way to conclude the franchise. And setting the story in the west didn't help either. Action-wise, Jet Li gets two notable fight scenes but it's all Hung Yan-Yan's show.

Cradle 2 the Grave - Nothing wrong with the story but Anthony Anderson and Tom Arnold (both comic reliefs of the movie) got overexposed to the point that it affected the whole tone of the movie. The movie could've fared so much better without them or any of the comedy that was out of place. The only saving grace is the action scenes by Jet Li.

War - Great cast spoiled by a predictable story and atrocious directing. Dubbed as the greatest fighting match-up in that Jet Li gets to have a fight scene with Jason Statham, they had so much to live up to and didn't meet our expectations the way we anticipated.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - Nothing needed to say... Except another waste of time for Jet Li.

Badges of Fury - Kind of his way of saying goodbye to contemporary action movies. The way the fight scenes were staged, and how Jet performed... It says it all. No passion, no commitment, no sparks. Just Jet going through the motions.

Edited by DiP
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TibetanWhiteCrane

What's with the Wong Jing hate? The man is a genius.

As for my choices....

I'm not a big Jet Li fan, and haven't bothered with anything post Mummy 3. But I think from his heyday, Black Mask and Hitman come to mind. I find those close to, if not unwatchable.

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I think Last Hero in China and Once Upon a Time in China and America are both good films. I’ve had a lot of fun with them over the years.

An obvious choice for me would be The One. Despite some highly original fight concepts and a decent action sequence here and there, the film is a pile of shit.

They’re not his worst, perhaps, but I think all three of Jet Li’s Shaolin movies are overrated. They’re a chore to get through for me.

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TibetanWhiteCrane
Just now, Drunken Monk said:

An obvious choice for me would be The One. Despite some highly original fight concepts and a decent action sequence here and there, the film is a pile of shit.

Yeah, counting his Hollywood movies, this is by far the worst.

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34 minutes ago, DiP said:

A sequel to the Donnie Yen thread. I've been searching for similar threads of the past and couldn't find any. Choose your picks... Here's mine:

Kids from Shaolin - Several of the fight scenes are great but gosh, the story is so boring and uninteresting (a huge step down from the original). I think I stopped watching after 30 min and just skimmed through all fight scenes

Last Hero in China - It's a Wong Jing movie... Whenever he puts his stamp on a trendy genre in a zany way then it's bound to suck. Save for the Gordin Liu and Alan Chui fight scenes, this is a waste of time.

Kung Fu Cult Master - Never got immersed by the hype surrounding this one, being a live-adaptation of the famous novel The Heaven Sword & Dragon Saber. Once again, Wong Jing distracts with this zany brand of direction despite being more serious in tone compared to the aforementioned movie. The fight scenes are great (especially the shaolin monk fight scene) but overall the movie didn't do anything for me.

High Risk - Another Wong Jing movie, and thereby another bad movie with good action (Jet Li vs Ben Lam). Why was Jet Li so fond of working with Wong Jing at the time?

Dr. Wai in "The Scripture With No Words" - The concept is fresh (going back and forth between modern and period times), but the whole execution made it very confusing and hard to enjoy.  The action is  good though. 

Once Upon a Time in China & America - This entry was unnecessary and bad way to conclude the franchise. And setting the story in the west didn't help anything. Action-wise, Jet Li gets two notable fight scenes but it's all Hung Yan-Yan's show.

War - Great cast spoiled by a predictable story and atrocious directing. Dubbed as the greatest fighting match-up in that Jet Li gets to have a fight scene with Jason Statham, their fight scenes had so much to live up to and didn't meet our expectations the way we anticipated.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - Nothing needed to say... Except another waste of time for Jet Li.

Badges of Fury - Kind of his way of retiring from contemporary action movies.The way the fight scenes were staged, and how Jet performed... It says it all. No passion, no commitment, no sparks. Just Jet going through the motions.

I like & enjoyed every movie you stated except The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

That is his only movie that I cannot give another watch from start to finish.

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One Armed Boxer

The fact that this thread has been live for almost an hour and there's not one mention of 'The Sorcerer and the White Snake' is cause for concern.

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37 minutes ago, TibetanWhiteCrane said:

What's with the Wong Jing hate? The man is a genius.

No general hate for the man, just some of his movies. His zany-vibed ones, in particular.

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15 minutes ago, One Armed Boxer said:

The fact that this thread has been live for almost an hour and there's not one mention of 'The Sorcerer and the White Snake' is cause for concern.

Haven't seen it as it never interested me from the beginning anyway. I'll take your word for it though :coveredlaugh

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For me, his worst HK movie is Black Mask. Hiring Yuen Woo-Ping was pointless because the fights are so trashy, and only serve to highlight how superior that Fist of Legend was. With the quick cuts, they might as well have got Corey Yuen to come on board.

His worst US movie is The One. It actually had the potential to be a justifiably long sci-fi film which balances the epic chase of Yulaw through the multiverse with Gabriel's character development as he gradually notices becoming superior. At 87 minutes, everything is too rushed. This is one of those films which calls for a remake, even if it only ends up being a TV series.

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TibetanWhiteCrane
1 hour ago, Cognoscente said:

It actually had the potential to be a justifiably long sci-fi film which balances the epic chase of Yulaw through the multiverse with Gabriel's character development as he gradually notices becoming superior. At 87 minutes, everything is too rushed.

You wanted MORE OF THIS???

vlcsnap-2021-02-03-09h44m58s87.png.22f9354bbfff8a99360a8f2ce9b94189.png

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Killer Meteor

I'm way behind on Jet Li films, probably only see a quater of his output.

 

Kids of Shaolin was pretty awful, did NOT need to see a grown man kissing his new-born son's penis! Yech!

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Obvious choices would be his US movies. I'd probably put Romeo Must Die to the front of that list. Now I'm aware that it has more sentiment because of starring Aaliyah. Also I'll admit the song she contributed at the time was pretty dope! However to me it was just a perfect example that Hollywood doesn't know what to do with (Asian) Martial Arts talent. The total overuse of slow-mo and wire work were truly awful! Although I will say I do somehow remember that the Fight between Jet Li and Russel Wong was pretty decent. Damn the more I think about it this might have been not as bad as I remember after all.

Edit: It took me five minutes and a YouTube video to remember why I hated this... X-ray vision.

 

Edited by laagi
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5 hours ago, TibetanWhiteCrane said:

You wanted MORE OF THIS???

vlcsnap-2021-02-03-09h44m58s87.png.22f9354bbfff8a99360a8f2ce9b94189.png

Not every victim, because some things are best left to the imagination.

2 hours ago, Killer Meteor said:

Kids of Shaolin was pretty awful, did NOT need to see a grown man kissing his new-born son's penis! Yech!

A back-to-front version of this was almost repeated in Jet's The New Legend of Shaolin.

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1 hour ago, Killer Meteor said:

Kids of Shaolin was pretty awful, did NOT need to see a grown man kissing his new-born son's penis! Yech!

Damn! Don't tell me it was Jet doing that...

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As I said once, myabe I have a contradiction spirit, but among the movies that are mentioned here as being the worst Jet Li's work, I LOVED Hitman Romeo must die, the Shaolin movies, Once upon a time in CHine and America, Last hero in China. 
I don't remember very well Cradle 2 grave, The one, Black, The scripture with no words and War...

For me, the worst movies I saw which he played in are Hero and The Warlords.

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One Armed Boxer
1 hour ago, DiP said:

Damn! Don't tell me it was Jet doing that...

No, pretty sure it was Yu Cheng-Hui. It's been years since I saw it, although I'm sure as most can attest, once witnessed it's not a scene which is easily forgotten, no matter how much you'd like to!

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Put me down for War and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

Late Edit: You can add League of Gods to the list. And I can see myself warming up to War at some point in the future.

Edited by DrNgor
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1 minute ago, Drunken Monk said:

I will not tolerate any Black Mask blasphemy. Mods! Ban these people!

One of the few Jet Li movies I never watched to this day :lipssealed

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20 minutes ago, Drunken Monk said:

I will not tolerate any Black Mask blasphemy. Mods! Ban these people!

I saw it twice in the theater. On opening day, we got there late and missed the opening action sequence. When it arrived at the dollar theater, we saw it again.

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6 hours ago, Drunken Monk said:

I will not tolerate any Black Mask blasphemy. Mods! Ban these people!

Watching Lam Ching-Ying's Kato movie, The Green Hornet (1994), was less of an annoying experience for me.

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