Once Upon a Time in China
dir. Hark Tsui
1991

:star::star::star::star::nostar:

No matter how good our kung-fu is, it will never defeat guns.

Jet Li is kickass as legendary martial artist Wong Fei-Hung in the first of the Once Upon a Time in China trilogy (tetralogy actually). It's extremely patriotic and the "foreign" characters are totally one dimensional, but it's nothing worse than Hollywood's treatment of Asian characters so I guess that's fair.

The climactic fight in the warehouse up on bamboo ladders between Jet Li and Yee Kwan Yan is one of the coolest fight scenes I've ever seen. Still, I kind've expected more overall from a film made in the early 90's (it felt straight out of the late 70's or early 80's at times).

This film has gotten me excited to see Let Li's newest film called Unleashed. Hopefully the film will be as good as the trailer, though it's one of those trailers that I think gives away to much if you really pay attention and the film was written by Luc Besson, who has fallen from grace in my eyes in recent years so we shall see.

I love how instead of writing about a film I just saw, I've devoted the last half of this post speculating about a film which I have not seen... I guess that's what happens when I stay up (again) until 4 in the morning watching movies instead of sleeping like any normal person. Sadly, I will probably stay up late again tonight watching OUATIC parts 2 & 3, which I also borrowed from the reference library at G7.

Once Upon a Time in China Trilogy