Martial Art Monk

BULLETPROOF MONK-2003-In 1943 Tibet a monk with no name (Yun-Fat Chow) is given the task of protecting a sacred scroll that could grant anyone who reads it great power. The Nazis invade  their temple and kill everyone except the monk who falls off a cliff after being shot at. 60 years later, the monk hasn't aged much and lives above a movie theater (run by Mako) in Toronto. He saves a young girl named Jade (Jamie King) stuck on the subway tracks with the help of a stupid thief Kar (Seann William Scott) who steals the scroll. After saving Kar from a street gang the monk decides to take the thief (who learned martial arts from watching old Shaw Brothers movies) under his wing. Strucker, the German who shot at him in the temple (Karel Roden) is now old but head of a huge corporation searching for the scroll with the help of his grand-daughter in the hope of it making him young again. After being pursued and hiding out with some other monks, the monk trains the thief to kind of be his replacement. When the monk is captured, Kar and Jade team up to save him.

 Chow is great in the title role and the fights, especially in the climax are well done. It's just too bad the thief character wasn't more likable. Video music director Paul Hunter does an excellent job in his feature film debut, a feat many others have tried and failed miserably at.

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Horror in Russia

THE ABANDONED-2006-A Russian born American film producer Marie Jones (Anastasia Hille) returns to her homeland to visit a farm she inherited. After being abandoned by her stupid guide she investigates what's left of the dilapidated house and seems to meet a zombie like version of herself. After nearly drowning she's rescued by a guy name Nikolai (Karel Roden from FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY). To show her gratitude she smacks him with a log. Later when he wakes up, he claims to be Marilyn's twin brother. They do some snooping around and find human remains then they encounter lookalike zombies. For a while Nikolai disappears but when Marilyn's escape attempt fails they meet up again and they get to see depraved drawn out scenes of their births and the death of their mother. 

This Spanish/Bulgarian/British confused, contrived junk just goes on forever and the finale features wild boars and vomiting.

According to some sources director Nacho Cerda' (from Spain) was suspected of being the director of the infamous “Alien Autopsy” footage because a short he made resembles it!

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