OK, so my headline is in jest.  Eric Serra isn't exactly revered in the film score community, largely due to his Goldeneye score, for which many people will probably never forgive him.  But he has shown on other occasions with scores like Leon and Joan of Arc that he is more than capable of writing good music, and Bulletproof Monk is his latest opportunity.  The film is a much-needed comicbook adaptation - there are far too few of those around at the moment - and when I sat in a crowded cinema and saw the trailer for it, I think I experienced the largest bout of spontaneous laughter at something that wasn't meant to be funny that I have ever seen.  Chow Yun-Fat's career hasn't really hit the dizzy heights since he decided to "go Hollywood".

Anyway, Serra's music is a somewhat agreeable mix of orchestra and synths; when the emphasis is on the former, things work very well, but at other times it is a bit much to take.  (I've never seen a film score album with a list of credits for music that's been sampled into it before - though James Horner must have been tempted.)  Tracks like "Bloody Tunnel" and "Darkhub" are exclusively electronic whizzes and bleeps that certainly wear one's patience.

The main theme, on the other hand, is most impressive, a surprisingly low-key variant on the Crouching Tiger formula of Chinese music placed into a Western idiom.  It's these parts of the score that are by far the most effective: the pizzicato strings and Chinese percussion in "The Monk With No Name" is quite inventive, and several of the other tracks impress in a similar way.

Speaking of tracks, there are no fewer than 35 of them, most of which are very short - only two are much above two minutes long.  While Serra does manage to maintain a consistent tone, this does result in the album coming across as being rather bitty from time to time.  I'd have chopped at least twenty minutes of its running time and stuck with the longest tracks only for a better listening experience - but (much to the chagrin of the record-buying public worldwide) I'm not in charge of such things.

All in all, this is an album that will probably surprise you with the amount of genuine quality and the inventiveness of some of the orchestral writing, but probably frustrate you with the horrible electronic noise that brings itself forth every other track or so. 

Buy this CD by clicking here!

Tracks