A note to the movie studios: Don't put anyone's name in the title like this. I don't like to see a poster for "Jet Li's Fearless" anymore than I want to see "Mel Gibson's Hate Speech Tirade" or "Tom Cruise's Alien Invasion." No matter who the star is, its pretentious and unnecessary. So stop it.
That being said ...
I am an oddity in the world -- a woman who likes kick flicks. I'm not crazy obsessed or anything, and I won't drive all night to see a Sonny Chiba festival, but I do own "Iron Monkey" on DVD. So take that as you will.
I've seen a lot of lovely films lately, and "Fearless" is one of them. It's beautifully photographed and the fight choreography is stellar. Some of the smaller fights were my favorites -- the one where he takes out the backflipping monks in two moves and the fight in the rain where Jet Li whoops some poor guy while holding on to an umbrella were choice. The fight with Hercules O'Brian is pretty good too.
Jet Li plays an at-times unlikeable character, a prideful martial arts champion only concerned with the next win and the next party. He neglects his family and his loyal best friend for a crowd of sycophants who claim to devote themselves to his style of fighting, but really just want him to pay for their drinks.
Yeah, we can see this isn't going to go well. And we didn't need that annoying, ever-present homeless guy to tell us.
Huo Yuanjia (that's Jet Li) loses it all -- including himself. Rebuilding his life in a typically bucolic village, he decides that sportsmanship is more important than championships, and now he fights to raise the spirits of the Chinese people, culminating in a match with four opponents in a row -- a boxer, a swordsman, a soldier and a Japanese karate expert.
"Fearless" is more "Braveheart" than "Bloodsport," and it's obvious it was Li's love song to his Wu Shu background. It also appears designed to thrill a censor in Beijing -- Western capitalists and self-serving ambition = bad, unity and community service = good. I don't mind movies with a message, but do you have to beat me over the head with it?
Overall, "Fearless" was a watchable movie, but it didn't have the "wow" factor in its martial arts and it didn't have the heart and emotion of other similar films such as "Hero" or "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
3 comments:
I saw this over the weekend as well, but I think I enjoyed it a little more than you did. From an emotional standpoint, it kills me that this will be Jet Li's last martial arts film. I grew up a Bruce Lee fanatic and had to wait a whole generation for an artist like Jet Li to set the new standard for modern day martial arts films.
My problems were in the actual storytelling. I didn't have a problem with the message of community over ambition since it's was ingrained in the Chinese culture, especially then. My problem was, I had a feeling that Huo Yuanjia was a bigger asshole in real life and this movie was too reverential to portray that range of character.
Ahh, but will it be his last martial arts film?
The commercials specifically said it was his last martial arts *epic*, and he's supposed to be in talks to co-star with Jackie Chan in a movie. So I think we'll be seeing Jet Li again.
I enjoyed this movie, but the plot was very predictable, despite my not knowing anything about its history. Yes Jet Li is going to be hot stuff, lose his cool, get his stuff back together, and then go out in a bang. And while there was some very beautiful scenery and fighting action, the outcomes were all but foretold. But Iron Monkey's good? I never saw that one.
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