Metacritic-Rezensionen

If action's your thing, then the Chinese-Hong Kong martial-arts epic True Legend is your movie.

In countless over-the-top set pieces, Yuen delivers striking combat clarity without sacrificing the visceral editing and crazy digital effects of modern bloodbaths.

Watching True Legend, a wuxia film crossed with classic vaudeville, it's hard to figure out who's borrowing from whom anymore.

There is no question that Yuen Woo-ping is a master of his craft, but True Legend leaves doubt as to his mastery of the art of storytelling.

True Legend's heart is in the right place. It's just the body that's weary.

Whereas Yuen's speciality has always been gonzo, gravity-defying spectacles, now he's spiced his set pieces with plasticine computer-generated flourishes-effectively puncturing the inventive, handmade charm and fluid flurries of artistry that made his classic fight scenes so thrilling.

After a stirring opening battle, however, the fights in True Legend become pretty routine. And beyond some lovely mountain scenery and a tiny cameo by a radiant Michelle Yeoh, there isn't much else to look at.

A hodgepodge of styles, True Legend works best as a freewheeling showcase for Yuen's dazzling fight sequences above any sort of cogent storytelling.

Bridged by rude comedy familiar to veteran viewers of Hong Kong martial arts cinema, True Legend is refreshingly unpretentious in comparison to the pompous nationalism of recent Chinese war spectacles like "The Warring States."

The story is painfully simplistic, and it becomes quickly apparent that the narrative is a crude cement to hold together the carnage.