The film

Chow Yun-Fat is probably Asia's most popular action star, and since he is also breaking into the American market by means of both successful Chinese films (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) as well as American productions (The Replacement Killers), he was cast in this movie which attempts to bring the Asian martial arts movies and Hollywood closer together. Story wise, it appears that a Tibetan monk slash martial arts master travels the globe to protect an ancient scroll, with other plot elements added to justify a series of fighting sequences and special effect show cases...

The music

The album presents an interesting mix between orchestral, new age and something beat driven like trip hop music. Sometimes it seems like you walk from a classical concert hall, straight into a pumped up Sega computer game; something which isn't often pulled of as well as this is. Serra had help in the composing process from his regular buddies like Stephane Brossolet (co-composed 8 tracks) and Nicolas Friszman (co-composed 3 tracks) while Olivier Schultheis orchestrated the symphonic parts and conducted the Hollywood Studio Orchestra.

The result fits well with some of Serra's releases in the past few years, and is probably most close to Rollerball. However, the distinct feature of the "Bulletproof Monk" score has to be the dark brooding touch, apparently mostly induced by the orchestra and some low rumbling synthesizer sounds. It's difficult to find any really specific musical themes, the most distinctive parts are a few orchestra riffs but they are too commonly used by all other movie composers to really attract attention. The focus of each piece seems to be have been directed much towards the scenes separately, and not so much to the whole.

The album however is quite well paced. Most tracks segue into each other and are bound by their mood rather than being musically distinct pieces, which seems quite a Serra trade mark. As for other trade marks, all the typical sounds are there, especially the percussion links this work all the way back to Serra's earlier efforts.

All in all, an effective album, with only one problem in that it stands out so little between Serra's other recent action scores. Only, this may very well be the first time that it can be enjoyed as a full uninterrupted 60 minutes+ Eric Serra album, with no annoying "hip" hit song tracks to break the mood! Most of us will not want to miss the opportunity.

     1. Kung                              2:29
     2. End of Destiny                    1:05
     3. Temple of Sublime Truth           1:12
     4. The Power of the Scroll           0:53
     5. Enjoy Your Vacation               1:25
     6. My Brother Monks                  0:58
     7. You are not Bulletproof           1:48
     8. Double Chase                      2:02
     9. The Monk and the Thief            0:41
    10. Bloody Tourist                    1:26
    11. Darklub                           1:22
    12. Karmonk                           0:41
    13. The Monk with No Name             1:11
    14. The Golden Palace                 1:26
    15. Give Me A Report                  1:37
    16. Tricked Pickpocket                2:04
    17. Eastwoo                           2:25
    18. Buttertea                         2:04
    19. It Is About Peace                 2:08
    20. I Am Not a Hero                   4:14
    21. The Noodle Soup Recipe            1:46
    22. Kojima                            2:13
    23. Flytime                           1:34
    24. The Responsibility of the Scroll  1:45
    25. Your Idea of a Joke               1:33
    26. A Little Test                     1:57
    27. Checking the Distance             1:20
    28. Jade's Mansion                    0:56
    29. Priceless                         0:48
    30. Shikanelp                         0:50
    31. Crazybitch                        1:60
    32. Struker and the Mirror            1:46
    33. Annoyox                           1:37
    34. The Last Verse                    4:51
    35. Flying Tattoos                    2:34