O Destemido

Tagline: Yuen Woo Ping tries hard and manages to entertain in an uneven manner...

It's been too long since The Blade's Vincent Zhao last cinematic venture. The lad for all his worth was groomed to be Jet Li's successor. For whatever reason, he disappeared off the radar and wandered into the wilderness of mainland television. Zhao lacks the on-screen charisma or likable good looks of Jet Li, but there is no doubting of his martial arts ability and his physical presence is comparable to Donnie Yen. Many would probably have forgotten that Zhao's career got off to a storming start by simply existing under the shadows of Jet Li in roles like Wong Fei Hung and the villain in Fong Sai Yuk, before embarking on the cult classic lead role in The Blade. Impressive resume one might assume. So instead of rambling on about past laurels, Zhao makes a stunning return and one might just assume, his career is on the rebound.

The movie goes like this: Beggar So (Vincent Zhao) is army general, but gives up the position for family life. Beggar So gives all his status to his adopted brother (Andy On) and lived a life of an ordinary person. Until one day, Andy On returns home and killed Zhao's father (Leung Ka-Yan) in avenging On's own nemesis. The result is Beggar So escaping alive with his wife waiting for an opportunity to strike back.

Director Yuen Woo Ping is obviously in top form and there are a number of action sequences that are original enough for a mention. The fight in the snake well between On and Zhao is both innovative and fun. Hong Kong no longer has a huge luxury of upcoming kung fu star. While Vincent Zhao isn't exactly in his twenties, but he is still young enough to relaunch a career and with a bit of luck, he may even be able to match the reinvention successes of a similar counterpart in Donnie Yen. Sure, Zhao can't act and when he tries, more than often he is overacting in the famous Yen's style. It remains to be seen if Zhao is given a better material, he will be able to embrace it as his own.

As usual, Zhou Xun is a wonderful actress of both quality and presence. While not exactly a conventional beaut, Xun is one heck of an actress that makes the unnatural natural. She have been constantly stealing the show in numerous epics starring as side characters, but in all honestly her acting ability is second to none in the current HK cinema. In fact, when considered on a whole, Xun is given a paper thin role with nothing to work with, yet somehow she manages to impress, engage and express.

Moving on to Andy On, he is certainly a case of missing in action. For the past decade, since his terrible debut in Black Mask 2, Andy On has showed himself to be a decent supporting actor. In fact, he was the best thing in 2003's Star Runner, decent showdown against Jackie Chan in New Police Story. However since then, he has been almost unnoticeable in all circumstances. Perhaps, True Legend is what you call, a re-launch of young Andy's career. While he does have some screen presence to a certain degree, his acting is too one dimensional and his villainous turn is neither memorable nor effective. The kid got martial arts potential; let's just hope he is not suitability wasted away.

All in all, True Legend is a welcome additional to modern day HK martial arts cinema. While the 3rd act may seem like a remake of Fearless and the film suffers from some obvious coherence and uneven issues. Namely the frequently fast forward style of editing, making days goes by as fast as years. Director Yuen Woo Ping does compensate this by some blood crunching action display and even if it is a carbon copy of Fearless in the third act, there is no doubt that Yuen is simply taking a leaf out of his previous efforts. One may wonder if the film simply ended in the 2nd act, it may well be more coherent, but for me, it would have left me half-baked. So honestly, True Legend really isn't that bad and in fact, it is quite a decent film with some good parts in between. A welcome return for Shaw Brothers and to a larger extent Mr. Vincent Zhao...(Neo 2010)

I rate it 7/10

• www.thehkneo.com

"True Legend" ("Su Qu-Er") was actually a nice surprise. I had been putting watching it off for some time now, but that turned out to be a mistake on my side.

The story in "True Legend" is about Su Can (played by Wenzhuo Zhao) who serves as a general, but leaves his army life behind to open up a martial arts school. His adopted brother Yuan Lie (played by Andy On), envious and always standing in the shadow of Su Can, end up killing their father and taking Su Can's son captive. Su Can and his wife Yuan Ying (played by Xun Zhou) end up at a secluded mountain, where they live with Dr. Yu (played by Michelle Yeoh) while Su Can is struggling to regain his fighting abilities and battle for his mind. Tensions are high and the stakes even higher, as the two brothers end up face to face.

Actually the story was rather interesting, although the movie had a tendency of lingering on certain parts a bit too much, where it ended up being somewhat of a drag to watch; especially on the mountain training scenes and the tavern epiphany scene.

What really impressed me about this movie was the sword fighting scenes and the martial arts scenes. They were amazing to look at. Very well choreographed and executed. Given this being a Mandarin martial arts movie, expect a lot of wire action in the movie. Personally, I don't mind that, but of course that is a matter of preference.

And as with most other epic Chinese movies in the same genre, there is a lot of really breathtakingly beautiful scenery to be seen in this movie. Lots of nice details everywhere.

"True Legend" is a great epic movie that hold elements from movies such as "Hero", "Ong Bak" and the like. It works very well when combined, and there is a lot of action from start to end.

If you enjoy Asian movies, especially the epic ones with lots of sword fights and martial arts, then it is very likely that you will enjoy "True Legend" as much as I did.

Americans have grown accustomed to a certain kind of Chinese martial arts film. Ever since Crouching Tiger, the Chinese MA film has gotten more attention beyond whatever Hollywood effort is churned out to force a Jet Li or Jackie Chan sub-par effort on American audiences. Crouching Tiger was followed by films like House of Flying Daggers and Hero, while those with bigger interests in the subject certainly sought out more films that most Americans might not know.

True Legend seems to pick up on this. Yuen Wo Ping, who is no stranger to Hollywood martial arts films, having dabbled his hand in a number of Hollywood efforts, seems to have taken some of what he's done for American audiences and applied it to this film. He has, after all, been attached to several big U.S. productions, most notably Kill Bill and The Matrix series of films. These and other notable Chinese MA films, which saw American audiences, between True Legend and his last directorial effort, Tai Chi Boxer (1996). So, it may not be surprising that he's incorporated some more Western friendly elements. That may be far reaching, but True Legend is certainly no traditional Martial Arts film.

For Chinese MA fans, this is a mixed bag. It starts out with several powerful action sequences, the most notable being the opening rescue scene. Sadly, this is Ping putting his best foot forward and the film never truly rises above it in terms of impressive action. That doesn't mean the film doesn't contain some other outstanding scenes that, at least, left me with a few 'oh snap' moments. And the combination of fantasy elements that you might see in older films, like the 5 Venom Fist style MA, and more modern concepts, like mixing break dancing with drunken fist boxing, give the film it's own identity.

Sadly, this creates a bit of an identity crises. We're given a historical context for the film, and the story presents itself similarly to Fearless, another MA biopic, but the film isn't grounded in reality and some strange turns are taken, those most notable being main character Su's encounter with The Wushu God. It's a bizarre, CGI heavy intermission between the more grounded first and final acts. But the entire tone of the film seems to be a mix of the two: the more traditional Chinese MA film and the modern, special effects and wire laden Chinese MA film, the kind that Western audiences might be more accustomed to. And reading about the production of the film, you can certainly see that Ping did want to go beyond the traditional film to create something more modern.

Despite this seemingly jumbled style, the film is full of Ping's mastery. Fantastic camera work, editing, and special effects add to the impressive set pieces and choreographed action sequences. Again, there are a ton of 'oh snap' moments, and in a MA film, that is a wonderful thing to have. The opening scene is an incredible display of talent, action, special effects, and choreography that will most likely go down as one of the great modern MA action scenes. There are plenty of other fantastic action sequences, and thankfully Ping knows how to shoot a proper action scene as opposed to so many other directors who think all the action has to be confusing and up close, and all the editors who think that it requires cuts by the second. This film reaffirms that, even after all these years, Ping can still produce something that is entertaining and exciting, that he is still a master of the MA sequence.

Whether you enjoy this film or not will depend entirely on how much you can enjoy the fairly odd mix of styles along with the inclusion of a fifth act to end the film. It does take a bit of a right turn with the final act, but it's none the less very entertaining, and includes a cameo (most likely our last glimpse) of David Carradine, who you might know worked with Ping on Kill Bill. However, I would recommend this film to any MA fan. It's unique blend of quirky style, fantastic action, and masterful filming technique all make up one entertaining Chinese MA.

Beggar Su is a folkloric kung fu hero, and "True Legend" is Su's story told in epic form, from esteemed general to madman to drunkard to hero. Vincent Zhao is the titular hero, who after rescuing a kidnapped prince, returns home to his wife Ying (Zhou Xun) and young son, rather than becoming a governor as the prince offers in reward for his service. Instead, he hands the governorship over to his foster brother Yuan (Andy On), thinking to share his good fortune with the man he thinks of as a brother and who is in fact Ying's actual brother. He doesn't realize that Yuan is full of hatred and vengeful feelings for Su's family, because Su's father had killed Yuan's real father many years earlier, to prevent that rampaging man from killing more innocent people. Five years later, Yuan has control of an army, and he is seeking vengeance....

That is only the opening section of this film, directed by Yuen Woo-Ping, who is best known in the West for choreographing the fight scenes in "The Matrix" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." "True Legend" is full of fight scenes, some of the quite funny, some of them quite beautiful; and it is also full of cameos of kung fu superstars such as Gordon Liu, Michelle Yeoh and, in his last role, David Carradine. I find that a little kung fu fighting goes a long way, but if you're going to see a kung fu film, you couldn't find better than this.

This movie is a work of art in many ways.

The Martial Arts displayed are really one of the best I have seen in a long time, yes it relies on flying and jumping everywhere, yet the fight scenes feels visceral enough not to feel to much like a dance.

The actors are really awesome, and they managed to make one of the BEST antagonist of all times.

Now let's get to the part that almost ruins it : The Pacing.

The flow of the movie suffers greatly from a bad editing, and it is too bad because it had the potential to be a true masterpiece.

This movie should have started backwards, beginning at the end, and having Su telling his story.

Instead of that, the pacing can be hard to follow, and at the end I was left with a strange feeling of incompletion.

Otherwise, the movie is still one of the best martial art movies of the past years, and if you are a Martial Arts fan do not miss it !