Kung Fu Traveler (2017) User Reviews

What did I just watch?... Robots. Aliens. Time traveling. Kung Fu...

[paul_haakonsen · 6/10 · 3 July 2020]

Sure, "Kung Fu Traveler" was a cheesy movie. No doubt about it. I mean, with a storyline about mankind being almost eradicated by alien invaders, and the Chinese armed forces sending a robot and a woman soldier 200 years back in time in order for the robot to learn Southern Kung Fu to bring back to the future, in order to fight the alien overlords and give mankind a fighting chance.

Yeah, it doesn't get any more corny or campy that than.

But guess what? This actually worked, because the movie was cheesy enough to actually be enjoyable and entertaining. Yeah, it was one of those types of movies. Sure, the storyline was predictable and amazingly straight forward with zero surprises, but it was made watchable by the cheesy storyline.

Something that also worked for "Kung Fu Traveler" was the action and martial art scenes and sequences, because they were quite nicely choreographed and executed on the screen. And it was nice to watch the likes of Tiger Hu Chen fighting on the screen - despite him being a robot.

The CGI effects in the movie, for the robots and aliens were dubious at best. They moved in very stunted and awkward manners, which looked fake and looked like something from a 1990s computer game, truth be told.

While "Kung Fu Traveler" definitely was watchable, it wasn't an outstanding movie. I am rating it a very mediocre five out of ten stars.

Trust the general IMDB rating, not the individual reviews.

[angelkitteh-32778 · 6/10 · 19 May 2018]

This film has been given such a poor and unfair review that I feel compelled to bring some fairness to it. It is definitely not a 1/10. People who rated this 1/10 either did not pay attention to the story, understood the language or simply disliked the CGI so much to be able to provide an unbiased review.

The CGI isn't top notch, but it's not bad either. It's about the level of a decent B+ listed movie. The story is what drives this movie. It's about a robot learning how to be human, incorporating human emotions into kung fu and ultimately, the art of taking oneself out of the equation, all to save the human race and the ones he cared about.

The story could have had more depth, but the action packed scenes make it an overall solid 6/10 for me.

This movie is partially sci-fi with the majority of the movie being more of a martial arts/action film. It is also true that if you don't speak mandarin, you will not get as much enjoyment out of the subtitles as a native speaker.

But in the end, it's worth a watch, and in my case, a re-watch.

Don't get fooled by the IMDB rating.. I'm 110% sure that the Chinese click farms were deployed to boost its rating :)

[SaseDegete · 1/10 · 16 April 2018]

Script 1/10 - it's just a cheap rip-off the Terminator 2 movie

CGI 3/10 - I've seen Bollywood SciFi movies with better explosion effects. Not to mention the "This is Sparta" wannabe scenes shot on a green screen are so bad that it's not even funny

Sound & Music 2/10 - the overlay for the fight scenes must-of came from a free music library, same for the soundtrack

Waste of my time 11/10

How did this ever get 6.7?

[ruthandgareth · 1/10 · 8 April 2018]

Foolishly watched this without reading the user reviews as I was intrigued by the concept. It's one of those oves where you know you can never get those 100 minutes of your life back, ever.

dont bother, really.

[vincom · 1/10 · 6 April 2018]

I luv martial arts, scifi movies, anything w/action. but oh my god this movie makes no sense. huge gaps in the story line. ok, i can live with that but not to this extent. the fighting is ok which there are a couple of good fight scenes but theyre not worth watching this movie that has no script....or a script written by a a 2 yr old. the scifi and kungfu sounds like a different/cool idea but this movie didnt know what to do with those 2 concepts

Chinese Schlock Perhaps, But It Works

[bigverybadtom · 7/10 · 17 September 2018]

I was not knowing what to expect really, but I took it out of the library randomly. It was better than I would have guessed.

Aliens have taken over most of Earth, including most of China. The Chinese military finds one of their own who knows the kung fu moves that have any chance of defeating the individual aliens, but the problem is that this art was mostly lost during the nineteenth century, when Europeans armies invaded China. A robot is sent back to that era, along with a human woman, to find the instructor of that form of kung fu. Of course, things are much more complicated than expected when they arrive.

Perhaps a ripoff of similar Western movies, but it still has drama and emotion as well as action, and it also suggests that modern China is more open about its distant past and culture than it used to be.

"The Cheeso-O-Rama!"

[carpathia-75824 · 1/10 · 25 April 2020]

This movie was pure cheese!!! There's no other way to put it... The CG's were lousy, acting almost nonexistent! I couldn't even make it through the first 10 minutes. Don't bother watching this, it's a waist of your time!

Good movie.

[Father_V · 7/10 · 17 January 2019]

This isn't going to win any Oscars but is a decent sci-fi, kung fu movie. It has a certain tendency to preach anti-foreign propoganda, but it's easily overlooked. If you want an enjoyable piece of escapism with some decent action, this is a movie for you.