Paul Magne Haakonsen When I bought this movie from Amazon it was under the impression of it actually being a Jackie Chan movie. Be warned though, that this is not a usual Jackie Chan movie at all, he is in it, sure, but as a guest actor only.And to make matters worse, the DVD is titled "Jackie Chan & the Kung Fu Kid", and the movie cover here on IMDb is titled "Kung Fu Master", but in reality the movie is titled "Looking For Jackie Chan". What is up with these lame alterations of movie titles? Sure I can understand the movie company's attempt to cash in on the popularity of the remake of "The Karate Kid", but this is just downright outrageous and scandalous. It suckers people into buying the movie under false pretenses.Anyway, the story in "Looking For Jackie Chan" is about young Chinese boy Zhang Yi-Shan who is going to school in Indonesia, bullied by classmates and failing classes, he sets out on a quest to go to Beijing, China, and seek out Jackie Chan in order to become his disciple and learn Kung Fu from him."Looking For Jackie Chan" is sort of a family type movie, but I assume that you have to be a Chinese family to fully appreciate this movie. I, as a Westerner, found the story to be adequate, though I felt cheated with the fake movie title on the DVD cover.The DVD cover said, and I quote, "essential for any Chan fans". Well, I will have to put a big question mark at that statement. This is hardly a Jackie Chan movie. He just have a small supporting guest role. This is the story of a boy's journey, of coming to terms with himself, the world around him, respecting himself and his elders, and a sort of rites of passage movie. Hardly an essential Chan movie.I am not saying that the movie in itself is bad, just don't sit down to watch it with expectations of it being a traditional Jackie Chan movie, and don't actually expect to see a lot of him on the screen. Watch it for what it is, a family movie about a boy setting out to find his idol, and that's it.

Paul Celano (chelano) I think I understand what the movie is about and what the directors were trying to get at. They wanted to show that the Kung Fu you see in movies is fake. That the actors are doing a form of it, but no one is really getting hurt. That the future is not about fighting, but about learning. They used Jackie Chan in the film because he is such a big star. He had very little scenes in the movie though. The movie was mostly about a boy who says that Jackie Chan is his hero. That he wants to go to China to find him so he can become he disciple and learn to basically beat up people. The kid learns a life lesson in this movie and that is pretty much what makes up the excitement of the movie. The music used in the movie is something you would hear out of a Saturday morning special. The actor was barely at par. Jackie Chan acted good, but again, he didn't have much of a role in a film that has his name written in hug letters. The poster of the film is very misleading, making viewers think it is a new Jackie Chan fighting movie. I believe it was done to get people to see the message of it all, but in return, it made viewers give pretty bad reviews. When I watched it, I realized what they did, but I was still going to watch the movie as a whole and rate it as I would any movie. Unfortunately, the movie was not that good at all and was lacking in many areas.

Wolfstemple I saw this at my local Redbox. Rented it and regretted it, it bored the bejeesus out of me.SPOILERS.This is basically where a 16 y.o. Chinese kid idolizes Jackie Chan and wants to meet him. Pretty standard plot but it's not like Forbidden Kingdom with some fantastical story. He lives in Indonesia with his grandmother and doing bad in school, particularly in Chinese. For whatever reason, he gets sent to his other grandparent's place to learn in Beijing.After his plane lands, he forgoes going to his grandparent's place and takes off to meet Jackie Chan. This detour includes a rural temple where he meets the temple owner and her daughter, having his wallet stolen by a gang whose matron takes a liking to him due to him being the spitting image of her dead brother, and then being taken hostage by the same gang, and him staying by the female cop who eventually saves him. After he runs from her (wearing her uniform, Jackie Chan is in town and he wants to get near the event), his disguise as a cop is foiled when a random woman asks for directions and he can't read the map. He has a run-in with the gang boss and the female cop spots them: she manages to handcuff the gang boss to a structure but she is beaten within an inch of her life until the boy intervenes and is on the verge of hysteria of bringing her to the hospital.The cop is comatose and the police bring boy to the Grandparents. They see something about a new movie studio on TV, they bring him there but is rebuffed nicely by the security guard. He tells his overbearing grandmother off when she mentions studying. He goes in the back where they cast extras, gets picked, and predictably gets booted off the set when he keeps asking when he'll meet Jacky. No surprise, this kid has been an impatient jackass throughout.His grandmother connives her way into the VIP area and stumbles into Jackie Chan without realizing it, and Jackie plays up to his nice guy image (which would be impractical in real life). The kid ends up getting to see one of Jackie's action sequences being filmed, Jackie asks his reason for being a disciple, boy says revenge against his schoolmates, and Jackie goes into schtick about how Kung Fu is not about that. Jackie promises the boy if he improves his grades, he'll take him on as a disciple. They take picture with Jackie's camera which he promises to send with improved grades.The kid goes back home thankful to grandparents and more obedient. End closes out that he improves his grades, and to prove to his peers about meet Jackie, he calls and after a belated pause, gets the photo sent to him. End.It was fine for a kid's film, but by the new title "Jackie Chan: Kung Fu Master" I expected a Jackie Chan film, not 5 minutes of him.When Jackie Chan finally did come up, it was anti-climatic and boring, and the whole last 10 minutes felt like a studying public service announcement for China. It also made me question Chinese Kanji system if a 16 y.o. kid who is getting Cs has problems reading anything throughout but that's another debate.What is most depressing about this film is that the kid could have given a shot of real emotional connection with any of the three unrelated females (temple daughter, matron, cop) but just as the film started getting any depth, the kid moved on with his quest. It would have been particularly interesting if the cop, which the movie never revisits despite her dire situation and him seeming to care about her in the end, would have trained him in martial arts at the end and the Jackie Chan thing abandoned as a message about real life heroes vs celebrity. (When the movie introduces her, it shows her beating 2-3 colleagues in the gym, and when he tells her of his Jackie Chan dream, she scoffs at it being fake movie crap unusable in real life.) But alas, it drearily plodded along to its cookie cutter ending.

thisissubtitledmovies Originally and more accurately titled Looking For Jackie, this 2009 Chinese family comedy has been retitled for its UK release in a cynical attempt to cash-in on Jackie Chan's recent Karate Kid remake. But with little screen time for the martial arts legend, does the film offer enough elsewhere to placate fans angry at being duped into picking up this DVD?A little research shows that Jackie Chan & The Kung Fu Kid was certainly a hit at the domestic box office, setting a new record for local children and family friendly productions. The film is not unwatchable and there is some ironic fun to be had, mostly due to its stiff lipped and po-faced tone. However, for anyone expecting to see much of Jackie Chan, martial arts action in general, or even an engaging 'rights of passage' tale about one boy's journey into manhood, will be left disappointed. PD