Dragonball

DRAGONBALL-EVOLUTION-2009-Nerdy white kid Goku (Justin Chatwin) lives with his Asian grandpa and tries to fit in and avoid bullies. On his birthday gramps gives Goku a “dragonball”, one of only 7 in the world. The evil demon Lord Piccolo (James Marsters) wants all the dragon balls so he kills gramps and Goku begins a quest to find all the magical balls and get revenge. Yun-Chow Fat livens things up as the comical Roshi. There's weird metallic monsters, lots of CGI fights, too much talk, crazy dream sequences and Goku turning into a giant monster. Though this is based on a hugely popular anime (of which I know very little about) it seems more influenced by LORD OF THE RINGS and HARRY POTTER. 

Director James Wong made FINAL DESTINATION and THE ONE (with Jet Li) before this.

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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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