Jing wu feng yun: Chen Zhen

excerpt, more at my location - One is an acclaimed director, the other an ever-growing martial arts man-of-the-moment. Their source material is Bruce Lee's finest hour. How does this first collaboration between Andrew Lau and Donnie Yen shape up?

That the film is not especially emotionally involving is a surprise when one considers who is at the helm. Andrew Lau is responsible for some of the more visceral and engaging moments in recent Hong Kong popular cinema (consider his Young And Dangerous movies, or the original Infernal Affairs), but here he shows an oddly clumsy hand with character and emotion.

Given the talent involved, it was not unreasonable to expect something of a classic. This is far from it, but its set-pieces still contain more genuine imagination and excitement than is likely to be found anywhere else - especially in the thrilling prologue sequence, which prompts hope from this reviewer that, someday soon, the conscripted Chinese soldiers in World War One get the cinematic tribute they truly deserve.

Imagine that an amateur screenwriter shat out a vomit draft and said, "That's Oscar-worthy!" Well, that pretty much describes this mumbled action flick.

In fairness, the script - or final cut - could have been messed up by anyone, so I won't blame the writer, but as an espionage-cum-action thriller, the film is a total dud.

If you're a fan of Donnie Yen (like me!), you'll watch this regardless of how bad anyone tells you it is, and where the big fight at the end nets it an extra star, please don't let the 4/10 fool you into believing that this is half-way decent, because it really is one of the worst Donnie films I've sat through. Which is a shame, because Shu Qi looks as gorgeous as ever and really pours a lot of emotion into her role... which only further highlights how badly the final film lets down both of its main stars.

Where to start….? Watched it on Netflix, and was really excited for the first 10 minutes because for once in my lifetime I finally came across a MA movie that's not telling me the story about how the Chinese being invaded from whomever for whatever reasons.

I was wrong, miserably wrong.

At one point I was still looking at Donne Yan killing German solider in the Western battlefield, minutes later he became Chen Zhen (played by Bruce Lee in the 1972 blockbuster, "Fist of Fury") in a black suit kicking Japanese's asses. Don't get me wrong, the fight scenes are crystal clear, fast, and furious; but for every 5 minutes fight scene comes a 35 minutes "Chinese trying so hard to be united against the Japanese", I just couldn't help but to skip through the so-called "acting" part. I knew what's coming next, you probably knew too, in fact everyone who have ever watched a MA movie would have known exactly what's going to happen next.

This is not about being incredibly stereotypical, this is not about absolutely zero character development; this is not even about being predictable. This is about the epic failure of the Chinese movie industry, the fact that they DO NOT have the brain power to think of anything new that's suitable in a movie to tie with Martial Art.

To conclude this, history is history, we do not need another and another and yet another movie to emphasis the past. We won't be nemesis trying to revenge the Japanese, this is not "glorious bastard", and we do not want to fall back in the same pattern and same routine, that's why we study history.

And Just a side note, never did a single Chinese troop fought outside of Asia during WW1, try harder next time.

Although the narrative gets convoluted at times, the historical setting of the Chinese labor corps sent to aid the allied war effort during world war 1 is historically factual ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Labour_Corps ), though it has been largely forgotten.

the Chinese intelligentsia also successfully mounted pressure to cause Japan to delay full scale aggression until the 30s ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-One_Demands )

this movie is essentially a big budget hong kong action movie produced as a homage to Bruce Lee. At times it strives to be too many homages at once with Donnie Yen resurrecting both Kato AND Chen Zhen ( Fist of Fury).

It shouldn't be conceived as Chinese propaganda (anymore than any of the Bruce Lee movies were) or anti-Japanese, as long as you understand that the Chinese truly were the underdogs back then.

in fact, the young Japanese actor playing the colonel totally stole the show.

Another fest of ass-kicking from Hong Kong superstar Donnie Yen, LEGEND OF THE FIST is loosely based on the same legend as Bruce Lee's FIST OF LEGEND and Jet Li's FIST OF LEGEND. Yen plays a masked freedom fighter battling against imperial Japanese forces during their occupation of Shanghai during the 1920s, and the film is a rousing, action-packed slice of superlative entertainment.

Okay, so the action doesn't quite have the edge of the similar IP MAN and its sequel, but generally speaking it's very good indeed. There's a particular viciousness to the scenes involving Yen going around and battling or murdering his beleaguered city's oppressors, and an involved, conspiracy style-storyline means that nobody can truly be trusted. The ending, which builds to one final bout with the enemy, is predictable in the extreme but nonetheless crowd-pleasing and hugely entertaining.

Yen sleepwalks through his role a bit, having played this type of character loads over the years, but he's given strong support in the likes of established names such as Shawn Yue, Anthony Wong and Shu Qi. The fast-paced story is handled well by Andrew Lau's Infernal Affairs, who brings the same kind of twisty, gritty vitality to this story as he did with that hugely influential cops vs. gangsters movie. And, of course, there are lots and lots of scenes of Yen kicking ass as only he knows how, including a spectacular opening that celebrates the little-known Chinese role in WW1.