White boy ruined the movie

He's still right though.

Yeah 'cause feeling the need to throw in some completely uselss american kid nobody cares about in the movie, on the other hand, that's totally justified.

Back in the late 90s, Jet Li's first Hollywood movie was in Lethal Weapon 4. Jackie Chan's first big hit in the US was around the same time, in Rush Hour. In both cases neither man played as a sole lead - Jet Li was the villain, and Jackie Chan was partnered with motormouth comedian Chris Tucker. In both cases, a substantial part of their appearance featured a culture clash between Chinese/US culture/traditions, whether played for comedic or sinister effect.

Point is, in 1998 I guess you can't blame Hollywood for being cautious. Li and Chan may have been big stars, but not in Hollywood.

However, this film was made 10 years down the line. Jackie Chan and Jet Li were now hugely well known in the US, and in fact this film was I think largely marketed as the first film to feature both Chan and Li.

So why the living **** were they forced to play second and third bananas in some dopey American teen coming-of-age zero to hero tale ? What clueless, cabbage-souled bean-counter still thought that was necessary? If you want to have a slightly crass riff on Journey to the West, fine. But filtering through a US teen and bookmarking it with a US prelude and epilogue was idiotic in the extreme.

That said, I'm being a hypocrite, because I enjoyed this film, largely because I found Li Bingbing attractive, which is as good a reason as any, and frankly better than most.

I think I could eat one of Bellamy's meat pies