BA_Harrison Chow Si Kit (Jet Li) is a writer of serial adventures who imagines himself as the hero of his stories, brave archaeologist King of Adventurers. Recently, Chow Si Kit has been suffering from writer's block as a result of his marriage problems with wife Monica (played by the lovely Rosamund Kwan), but receives help from his friends when his back is turned, making the King of Adventurer's latest exploits a little more outlandish than usual.I'm a massive fan of martial arts star Jet Li, and director Siu-Tung Ching's A Chinese Ghost Story is one of my all-time favourite HK movies, but with Dr. Wai, the pair have managed to deliver one hell of a dreadful film, a shoddy mess of ill-conceived comedy and action scenes that seem to have been edited together completely at random. I defy anyone to make sense of this movie, particularly if, like me, they're watching with English subtitles, the film boasting some of the worst subs I have ever tried to read.Cutting between Chow Si Kit's real life and that of his imaginary character, Dr. Wai pays little attention to logic or narrative flow. The visuals are stylish, as one might expect from Siu-Tung Ching—a lot of time and money has clearly been spent on creating a spectacle—but it's all so incredibly slapdash that none of it works. On the contrary, the film proves extremely tiresome, despite such lavish nonsense as a giant runaway metal bull, a steam locomotive crashing through a town, a mid-air encounter with a man-monster on a crashing plane, and a set-to with flaming whip-swords. Despite such adversaries as a team of ninjas, a pair of sumo wrestlers, and Billy Chow, the showy kung fu fight scenes also fail to impress thanks to an over reliance on ridiculous wire-work.I've seen Dr. Wai described as a Chinese Indiana Jones, but to be honest, the best bits of Dr. Wai aren't even as good as The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull at it's worst, which says a lot.

Dave from Ottawa This wonderful adventure comedy is filled with eye-popping action and big budget sets and other top line production values, but what really makes the movie is the fact that the main story is framed within another even funnier story. You see, Dr. Wai, China's answer to Indiana Jones, is a fictional creation of author Jet Li, who has writer's block and is facing a deadline. So, his two idiot assistants and soon-to-be-ex-wife 'help' him by writing in parts of the story while he sleeps, causing the main story line of 'Dr. Wai' to go off in wild directions, and causing characters to shift from good to bad and back again. As a straight adventure movie, this is fine entertainment, but as a comedy about the creative process it is very clever and quite effective. Each of the four writers has his/her own slant and makes the story different by their contributions, and yet it all comes together smoothly. Plus, the mix of comedy, romance, historical fiction and martial arts action meshes well, something that is not often the case in Hong Kong pictures.HIGHLY recommended for anybody who likes Jet Li, action movies in general, or even movies about writers. This one is smart, well-formed entertainment.

Batkid1 I don't expect much from Action/Adventure films, but this is just plain out ridiculous. First off, you don't really care about the characters because most of them are too self-centered and given "next-to-none" development so the viewer could honestly care less. Granted, it's not the "Worst Movie Ever," but here the film just drags to the point where you just want to turn it off even if you're a patient person like me. Fan of Jet Li who are here just to see his performance and showing off his Martial-Arts skills will be heavily disappointed because there are few scenes where he is creatively beating up someone or drawing in the viewer. The film is just a silly Chinese version of Indiana Jones and, sadly, it was better off not being parodied and/or being rehashed. Watch it if you absolutely need to see anything with Jet Li in it, but don't come complaining to this IMDb board exclaiming on how disappointed you were !

gridoon I have to disagree with one of the previous reviewers who said that this movie would be ideal for Hong Kong cinema neophytes. I believe that only HK fanatics should even attempt to watch it - the less experienced viewers will probably turn it off after about 30 minutes (it's no wonder that no American distributor picked it up for re-release; it certainly doesn't have the wide appeal of a movie like "Meltdown" / "High Risk"). The idea is ambitious, the production is lavish, but the story is confusing and unengaging, and the result is a film too bizarre and self-indulgent for most audiences. Jet Li once again proves that he can act (in a dual role, no less), but the vast majority of the fighting is over-the-top and (intentionally) unrealistic. There are some memorable moments, however, like his brief encounter with two huge sumo wrestlers! (**)