Zhong hua ying xiong

I stumbled onto this film being shown 5/14/2006 on Spike TV. The stunning production work caught my eye in the opening battle scene. The color photography throughout this film is first rate. The film is entertaining from beginning to end. According to IMDb, this is the only film Jet Li has directed. His direction is first rate. This is a Chinese version of a film of soldiers fighting and coming home from the war, in this case World War 2. The film primarily focuses on the exploits of one soldier returning to a town where his buddy, a lieutenant in the marines, lives. He becomes involved in the life of his friend, the friend's daughter and the goings on in their town. The town is occupied by some American sailors who like to run roughshod over the Chinese occupants. Conflicks take hold. There is a style in this movie of words that I cannot find, but it is entertaining and at a very high level than the few pictures that I have seen out of China. There is a wonderful "gritiness" throughout the movie. Two scenes that demonstrate this is the group of Chinese soldiers playing their little wind instruments marching down the street and the fight scene in the driving rainstorm in the bar. Great movie!(added 05/15/2006-The style of this film for some reason reminds me of GUNGA DIN).

Jet Li directs and stars in Born to Defend, a fight-packed martial arts movie set in China shortly after the end of the second world war. Li plays Jet, a soldier returning from the war who begins working with his pal (and ex-lieutenant), Zhang, helping with his rickshaw business. But when his wartime buddy is hospitalised in a fight with an American, and the rickshaw is trashed by a gang of US Navy bullies, Jet seeks revenge…

I love the majority Jet Li's movies, so it is a shame to report that this one is a bit of a letdown action-wise, and also extremely xenophobic; every American is portrayed as a drunken, brawling, womanising, murderous thug without any redeeming features whatsoever, whilst the Chinese are (mostly) seen as hard-working and honourable people. I realise that foreigners are often used as bad-guys in this kind of movie, but the 'racism' in Born to Defend is taken to a ridiculous level which is totally unacceptable (and I'm not even an American).

The fight action, although plentiful, doesn't live up to the standard that fans have come to expect from a Jet Li movie, and the fact that the hero gets his butt kicked for the majority of the running time makes the film even more disappointing. Jet's incredible martial arts skills take a back seat, with most of the early fights being boxing matches (with only a few kung fu kicks thrown in to occasionally spice things up).

The finale sees events improve somewhat with a terrific showdown between Jet and his enemies in a factory, but it is a case of too little, too late.

Jet handles the direction well and it is a shame that he hasn't tried helming a movie since; maybe his debut's lack of business at the box-office knocked his confidence—a shame, since he shows promise behind the camera, with an impressive explosive battle at the beginning and some lovely rain drenched scenes later on.

Die hard Jet Li fans will probably want to check this out regardless, but casual viewers beware—this is not one of his better efforts.

5.5/10 (which I will generously round up to 6 for the IMDb rating).

Out of the 20 or so Jet Li movies I've seen this, in my opinion,is his best. Many people may disagree with me, but I think it was fantastic. Jet Li did a great job directing for his first time and the fight scenes are great!

The plot is very basic. Jet plays a Chinese soldier returning home from the war. When he arrives home he meets up with his uncle and realizes everything has changed. The Americans there control everything with power and money. Jet eventually gets involved when the Captain of the sailors hits him with his car and things start from there. Jet has many battles with the sailors at the bar-boxing ring.

There is about 8 fight scenes in total, some are short and some are really long. All of the one-on-one fight scenes involve Jet fighting an American sailor. There is also a really good brawl room brawl after Jet fights the captain of the sailors for one of many times in the boxing ring at the bar. The fight scenes are boxing and Kickboxing scenes with Hong Kong style choreography. They are really good and resemble some of Cory Yuen's later work. Jet Li does throw in some traditional Kung Fu though, like his fighting stance he uses. The ending fight is great where Jet takes out each sailor one-on-one untill only the captain remains in the factory. The final fight is really fast paced and keeps you wanting more. Jet Li shows us a future trademark by using a chain in a Wu Shu type technique(such as the belt in Fist of Legend, the fire hose in Romeo must die, the rope in My father is a Hero a.k.a the Enforcer,etc.) They also start playing this cool music that you would hear in a movie like Rocky. So I suggest you buy this movie if you have the chance!

At first when I was watching this I began to wonder if the movie was going to be unintentionally venture into the taboo by being geared towards racism. Fortunately it doesn't. The characters' behaviours on the antagonist side may be overemphasised but it still works, and that's what the movies message is geared towards. There is not anything political going on here.

The fight scenes are really what you will be watching this movie for. (if not then you would be watching a drama instead of a "martial arts" movie). The fight scenes are killer and send this movie over the top. There is enough senseless violence to have you jumping on your seat and shouting for sure.

Pride can be an ugly thing... but without it we wouldn't have any martial arts movies.

`Apart from using his advanced Kung-fu skills, Jet Li demonstrates an incredible US boxing style, a completely different fighting style in this movie.'

The above is a direct quote from the back of the DVD box of `Born to Defence'. It is also a bold faced lie. The closest Jet Li gets to American boxing in this film is when he puts on a pair of boxing gloves and steps into a boxing ring in the middle of a seedy bar. All similarities between American boxing and Jet Li's style end there. The closest you'll see to a boxing style is Jet Li kickboxing, which is much more of a Thai style than an American one.

With the hype the DVD box gave to Jet Li using an American boxing style this was a bit of a letdown. For fans of Jet Li wanting to see him stick, jab, and shuffle, I highly suggest the movie `Fist of Legend', as there's a scene in that movie where Jet Li actually DOES show off a good flyweight style of boxing. `Fist of Legend' also happens to be the best Jet Li movie I've seen to date; and outclasses and outshines `Born to Defence' in just about every aspect of filmmaking.

`Born to Defence' was the directorial debut for Jet Li. It also marks the last time he directed a film. I found it interesting that this film was in Cantonese as opposed to Mandarin. If you watch this movie on DVD I highly recommend watching it in the Original Cantonese with English subtitles as both the Mandarin and English dubbing on the DVD are really, really bad! So bad at times the dubbers completely miss dubbing in lines of dialogue as you're watching the actors lips move in complete silence. As a director Jet Li keeps this film simple, it's Jet Li's character (ironically named Jet in the English dubbing) against the evil bullies of the U.S. Navy. `Jet Li vs. The U.S. Navy Bullies' would be a very apt title for this movie indeed.

The martial arts in this movie are poor as compared to other Jet Li films I've seen. The film also lacked a certain cohesion as well. Several key fight scenes are interrupted by very poor editing. In no fewer than 2 fight scenes the camera cuts away from Jet Li at a critical point in the fight. When the camera cuts back to Jet, we join the fight already in progress; the action picks up in real time, instead of picking up where the cut left off. In a martial arts film, the spotlight should be on your superstar, and any cuts to background actions should not result in the audience missing out on what could have been a great fight scene. For the lack of cohesion in the fight scenes, and my disappointment with the alleged boxing style this movie fails to deliver, I give it 4/10 stars.