O Mestre da Guerra

The above just about sums it up: if you dig the film's sense of humour, you'll enjoy it so much more. Alas, most western viewers probably won't, so will brand its uniqueness simply as a "mess".

To be fair, this is a very "seen it all before" story, but with warp-speed cuts, great use of SFX, above par wire-fu and superb cinematography, the flick is elevated way beyond its humble plot. I think that when film fans talk about "vision", they mean something like what the director managed to convey on screen in this very film.

So, what's it all about?

A kid with the mark of a born kung fu legend is exploited into fighting for a cult, until a doctor warns how such violence will lead to his death and that he needs to learn the passive art of tai chi in order to live a happy life... as opposed to plain dying. Naturally then, our somewhat dim-witted lead ventures off to Chen village to learn, only to be constantly turned away, as the art isn't taught to outsiders. And on it goes...

With eye-candy galore, this film truly caters for men! I mean: a fast-paced kung fu flick full of gorgeous women? Yep, Tai Chi Zero ticks all the boxes, but again, it's that sense of humour that'll make or break the film for you, and for me, despite all its positives, there was only so much enjoyment from this that I could get.

It seems obvious, but I'll nutshell anyway: others will call Tai Chi Zero "dumb" or "awesome", but the only real way to determine if you'll enjoy this film for yourself, is to watch it.

Touted as one of the most anticipated Chinese movie blockbusters of the year, actor-director Stephen Fung's TAI CHI ZERO is a revisionist take of a classic martial-art movie with a steampunk twist. On paper, the concept sounds interesting enough. Even the trailer itself makes me believe it's a go-for-broke, martial arts comedy in the vein of KUNG FU HUSTLE (2004). But for all the colorful effort that Fung tries hard to be different than your regular martial-art movie, TAI CHI ZERO is strangely uninvolving and poorly executed in many ways.

The story centers on a martial-art prodigy named Yang Luchan (Jayden Yuan) who is born with a fleshy abnormality where he has a "horn" sprouting from his forehead. Whenever someone punches his "horn", he turns himself into a mystical warrior that able to take down a score of enemies in a short period of time.

One day, when his master, Zhao Kanping (Fung Hak On), who is a leader of the Divine Truth forces, ends up being killed by Qing army. The Divine Truth army physician Dr. Dong (Leung Siu-Lung), who also badly injured by the attack, urges Luchan to head on to Chen Village to study Master Chen's (Tony Leung Ka-Fai) unique martial arts technique that promotes internal energy. Apparently Luchan's "horn" has already turned red and he will die soon enough if it turns black.

But upon arrival, Luchan finds his presence is unwelcome by the villagers of the Chen Village. He finds out that nobody will teaches an outsider of their Chen-style martial arts. Worse, Master Chen is nowhere to be found. He only manages to locate Chen's daughter, Yuniang (Angelababy), who runs a local medicine shop. She also makes it clear that she will not teaches Luchan at any circumstances, and urges him to give up instead. But the hard-headed Luchan keeps trying to find way to learn Chen-style martial arts at all cost.

Yuniang's boyfriend, Fang Zijing (Eddie Peng), who recently returns studying from Europe, tries to convince the villagers to allow a railroad through their land and to install electricity. Unfortunately his visual presentation goes terribly wrong and ends up being an object of ridicule by the villagers. Zijing is upset about this, and subsequently joins forces with East India Company representative Claire Heathrow (Mandy Lieu) to persuade the villagers by force.

Meanwhile, Luchan befriends with an old laborer (also Tony Leung Ka-Fai) and secretly copying Chen-style martial arts from the villagers he's encounter from.

Then one day, Zijing and Claire returns to Chen Village with foreign soldiers, along with a giant destruction machine called "Troy No. 1", to teach the villagers a hard lesson.

On the surface, the movie is exceptionally busy with lots of fancy visuals. From arcade game-like screen graphics that has exclamation marks of "K.O.!", "Round 1!" to video game pop-ups (labels on people and location), as well as manga-like animated section, the movie should have been a fun-filled entertainment. Unfortunately, Fung's direction is terribly haphazard and he doesn't have sense of pacing. Despite clocking at a compact 97 minutes, the movie feels unusually overlong (as if watching a 2-hour movie) because of numerous expository-heavy scenarios that could have been trimmed short.

Another huge problem here is Chen Kuo-Fu's overcrowded screenplay that tries too hard to be everything. For a movie that supposes to concentrate on Yang Luchan's quest to learn Chen-style martial arts, his story here is more like an afterthought.

All the actors here are mixed bag. As the main star of the movie, real-life martial arts champion Jayden Yuan is terribly dull and wooden as a performer. Eddie Peng is unconvincing to portray the kind of character who is vengeful and filled with lots of hatred. Angelababy, who is best known for acting in romantic comedies, does quite an okay job as a strong-willed martial artist. American-Malaysian Chinese model Mandy Lieu, is all porcelain beauty but her acting skill is plain terrible, as well as her wooden English dialogues. Of all, only Tony Leung Ka-Fai is credible as the old laborer and Master Chen.

Technical credits are overall adequate at best, while Sammo Hung's action choreography is surprisingly average. The martial arts scene, which combined wirework and slow-motion, are all empty style but little substance. It's especially a shame that Jayden Yuan is given little chance to strut his stuff here.

Overall, TAI CHI ZERO is a huge disappointment for a movie that tries to expand into a planned trilogy. What's more, the sequel, TAI CHI HERO will be released in a few weeks' time on Oct 25. Hopefully we can see some significant improvement by then.

The boy Yang Lu Chan (Jayden Yuan) was born with a little fleshy horn on his forehead and is called The Freak and is humiliated and rejected by the other boys in his village. However, when the horn is touched, he turns into an eminent kung fu warrior. When his beloved mother dies, he follows his Master Lao Zhao (Hark-On Fung) that is the leader of the Divine Truth army that fights the emperor army. However, every time that Yang fight, his horn gets darker and Master Dong (Siu-Lung Leung) tells that if it gets black, he will die. When the emperor army attacks the Divine Truth, Dong is deadly injured and he advises Yang to travel to the Chen Village to seek out Master Chen Chang Xing (Tony Leung Ka Fai) and learn the martial art Tai Chi that would provide energy to him to survive. However, the Master Chen is in a retreat and the Chen villagers refuse to teach the technique to outsiders. Yang meets Chen's daughter Chen Yu Niang (Angelababy) and she successively beats up on him trying to force Yang to give up. But a laborer suggests Yang to learn the Tai Chi movements while she beats him.

Meanwhile, Yu Niang's former boyfriend Fang Zi Jing (Eddie Peng), who was born in the village but has studied in Europe, returns to Chen Village expecting to convince the locals to allow building a railroad across their land. His proposal is rejected and he returns with the railroad representative Claire Heathrow (Mandy Lieu) in a lethal machine with British soldiers to destroy the Chen Village. Yang believes that if he becomes a hero saving the village, the locals will teach him Tai Chi.

"Tai Chi 0" is a funny adventure that uses the ancient Chinese tradition in the format of a video game. The good thing is that despite the difference of cultures, the story is highly entertaining and is worthwhile watching this movie. The bad thing is that the movie is to be continued. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Mestre da Guerra" ("The Master of the War")

China is changing. Because film is a major force for shaping the national character, among the most interesting things these days, is watching the Chinese scramble to reinvent (post Mao) who they are and how they fit in the modern world.

Their newly-emerging documentary school chronicling the industrial rise of China is one aspect of this, and seems to have produced some pretty good pieces.

Their tried and tested practice though, meant both for internal consumption and abroad, is manufactured postcards of harmony (moral, spiritual), usually anchored in fabled history, usually in martial arts.

We saw that with the faddish promotion of qigong in the 90's, the Wong Fei Hung films and Zhang's Hero. We saw it again a few years ago with Yip Man. This juvenile mishmash is a tai chi showreel for the twitter generation reared on blockbuster steroids.

It is another 'origins' story of martial arts, that of Yang-style taijichuan. And because the filmmaker probably felt that to his teenage audience the mid-1800's would seem like forever ago, he goes crazy on myth and movie nonsense, but careful not to upset state officials.

This leads to a pretty boneheaded product. Once more, Chinese 'purity' is contrasted with encroaching Western civilization. Westerners standing in for capitalism and technology are portrayed as evil and corrupting, while the actual film is made by copying what is currently trending in the capitalist blockbuster market.

The steampunk revisionism of a huge metallic beast threatening the old way of life is from Wild Wild West. The notion of a small community where everyone is a martial arts expert is from Kung Fu Hustle (and of course the story of Chen Jia Gou). The obvious video game humor is from Scott Pilgrim. The wire-fu is Sammo Hung's and a longtime staple of cinematic wushu via HK. The speed-ramps of the opening battle are from 300, with other perspectives borrowed from Scott and recent John Woo.

This is all echoed inside the film as the young boxer learning taijichuan by imitating the moves.

As someone who practices in the Yang-style, I advise you to steer clear of this. It has no sincerity or soul. What is of some interest, is noting the irony of this film in the current climate of aggressively expansive Chinese capitalism. Or how the Kung Fu Panda franchise is widely celebrated there.

Meanwhile, Chinese martial arts have gone from their original mix and match roots of outlaw boxing, to collective standardization in the communist years, to government-promoted sport, to exhibition and health therapy. Having proved inadequate in the modern mixed martial arts world, the current move is away from the forced harmony of (usually fabricated) tradition and towards the practical cross-training system of sanda/sanshou, which in turn emulates several foreign styles.

this movie is another coffin nail of how Chinese movies have already past the point of no return unsalvageable terminal disease. this movie has wasted lot of money on nothing but messy childish soul-less hollow gimmicks. the screenplay was also a milestone of the worst of worst Chinese screenplay writers who got the incurable brain damage from reading too many absurd comic books and playing too many ridiculous video games. viewers who praised this movie as an epic masterpiece should also have their heads thoroughly checked, but i doubt MRI could find how their brains were damaged since those comic books and video games are like untraceable virus. this movie also proved that the failure of the Chinese education system which only created copycatting self-claimed geniuses like guys eating too much American junk food after endless garbage-in, garbage-out digestion. all kinds of crap to these people are like most tasteful cuisines.

oh my god, what a mess of this movie has created. i don't even have appropriate words to describe how disgusting this movie is. i always wonder why those rich people would invest money on such pure garbage. by ridiculing one of the legendary Chinese martial arts masters is on the par of the Chinese communist party who claimed itself was the sole party fighting the Japanese invasion. this movie is so disgusting that i don't even know how to review it with proper words. god forgive me.