Watch The Drummer For Free

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The Drummer missed out on a few key elements that stopped it from reaching its unstated goal, which was to make a philosophical statement. Unfortunately, the last gangster part of the movie is very weak. It's not a bad ending per say, it's just badly played out. It's difficult to tell is it's simply the acting that is sub-par, or if it's the scenario, the editing, or even the directing.When you see the end, you put into question the rest of the movie, and the light it casts just makes it look like low budget movie. It doesn't look that way until the end. What happened? Hard to say.Exclude the end and you get great visual with an interesting movie, but I can't recommend it because it leaves you with an undesirable aftertaste.

I liked the movie a lot due to the kinda spiritual message or Buddhist philosophy that was eloquently conveyed throughout the movie. But much more than that, I truly enjoyed the beating of the drums and rehearsal scenes of the artistes in the movie. The way Jaycee Chan's character evolves gradually into a better being is conveyed impressively. Jaycee is a decent actor but I must say he looks blank in many scenes which required intense expression of emotion. One of those lesser known movies here in India which can be watched without any guilt. Maybe you might even become a calmer person or have a greater appreciation for the little things in life after watching this!

This is about 60% of a great film. Jaycee Chan plays a drummer in a band who beds down a gangster's girlfriend, only to be found out. Sid (Mr. Chan) has a father (Tony Leung Ka Fei) who is also a gangster and the other gangster wants revenge, specifically Sid's hands chopped off. Sid flees to the mountains of Taiwan, whereupon he stumbles across a group of zen drummers. He is captivated by them and looks to join him. They take him in and make him go through rigorous training to prove himself. Herein lies the problem in this movie. Its not a fatal one: This film should have stayed with the zen drummers. Instead we get more of the gangster goings on in Hong Kong. The parts shot in Taiwan (its beautiful countryside, and the cinematography is great) make up a very good film. Although she doesn't do enough, the so pretty Lee Sin-Je (also known as Angelica Lee in other films) is part of this. Her beautiful piercing dark eyes are always welcome (an aside: see "The Eye" with her as the star, not the horrible Jessica Alba remake), but I wanted more reaction from her. She's a very good actress and looks beautiful, especially when she smiles. There is a bit too much of the gangster stuff going on, it drags the film a bit. However, its still worth watching for the zen drummers and Jaycee Chan is a fairly good actor. Recommended, just could have been a great film.

The following are extracts from the program of a recent performance of U-Theatre that I attended: "The 'U' of U-Theatre is a phonetic transcription of a Chinese character meaning 'superior, excellence'. In ancient China, this word also referred to 'professional actor'…..U-Theatre is an arts group established in 1988 by Liu Rou-yu…..As a student of Polish director Jerzy Grotowsky, Liu had undergone professional training that took place in the woods….. She decided that the focal point should be 'the development of a performer's body and mind'…In 1993, Huang Chih-chun was invited to join as a drum instructor, and he introduced the training method of 'learning meditation prior to drum techniques'….For U-Theatre, performance is not an end in itself, but an aspect of a holistic way of life." U-Theatre has performed in art festivals around the world – New York, London, Moscow, as well as numerous in cities in Asia, Europe and the two American continents.This movie is first and foremost about U-Theatre. One approach could be to dramatize the history of this arts group. Instead, the Hong Kong movie makers chose to fit it into a gangsters' yarn, for reasons that are painfully obvious. The gangster story is banal and too drawn out. But I do give credit to the movie makers for devoting more than half of the movie to U-Theatre, in the middle section when the protagonist, a kingpin's son, is in exile in Taiwan and becomes a new student in U-Theatre. As well, both founders Liu Rou-yu and Huang Chih-chun are in the movie playing themselves, together with other members of the group, giving the movie authenticity.While I am not particularly impressed with the script, the acting is fine. Jaycee Chan, looking as like his father Jackie Chan as I've ever seen him in a movie, handles his character's spiritual transformation reasonably well. Lovely Angelica Lee, among the best Chinese actresses today, is not even challenged in her role. The Hong Kong gangster movie veterans have all delivered – Tony Leung Ka-fai, Roy Cheung Yiu-yeung, Josie Ho, Kenneth Tsang Kong. For eye-candy, there is Cheng hei-yi, better known to the Hong Kong Canto pop crowd as Yumiko.