well, i watched the hong kong version, which sets the modern tale of a serial writer(jet li), who is suffering from writer's block after being dumped by his wife (the always watchable rosamund kwan). in an attempt to get li's creative juices flowing again, his assistants (pretty boy, takeshi kaneshiro and, the charmingly goofy, charlie yeung) begin to write their own continuation of li's story of 'the king of adventurers'.

what follows is a transposition of li, kaneshiro, yeung and kwan's relationships on to the characters of li's series, mixed in with an adventure story about a 'scripture with no words'. this is basicallly the source of most of the film's humour and, of course, it's action.

all things considered, it's a bit of a mess, but a very watchable mess, with a few spoons of fun, a dash of style and a generous portion of jet li jumping around kicking some arse.

i'm interested to see the international cut, which doesn't have any of the modern day footage, but instead blends addition footage (shot by tsui hark) alongside the 'king of adventurers' footage; is it any good?

good fun, but a bit of a silly mess...