Tai Chi 2

Since I have been practicing Tai Chi for a little while, I like to watch movies that have Tai Chi in them. This one has some cool wire work, but also some great Tai Chi. It's also got a cute story. I think anybody who likes martial arts films would enjoy this movie.

Jacky Wu (former student of the beijing wushu team, who formed Jet li) plays Jackie: a young man that has to fight opium dealers. Most of the time, the fights look quite nice but the acting is so terrible (particularly from the white villain). There is also a cheap love story between Christy Chung and Jacky Wu and sometimes you can even see the cables in the fight scenes, particularly in the final fight. This movie deserves a 7.5/10 just because of the action sequences, nicely choreographed by one of the great: Yuen Woo ping.

Wow, this film was much better than i expected! (maybe even better than Tai Chi Master!) Jackie Wu is Excellent as the lead and Darren Shahlavi(Smith) is very good as the british villain in this his first hong kong movie. Great supporting cast including Sibelle Hu (Jackie's mum) , Yue Hoi (Jackie's dad), Christy Chung (jackie's love interest), Billy Chau (Opponent, Great Nothern kicker), Ji Chun Hua (Smith's Thug) and Taam Chui (Jackie's Cousin). All give good performances especially Ji Chun Hua (Falling down a flight of concrete stairs, no pads!) Darren Shahlavi (Great stunts all round!), Jackie Wu (great fighting, despite the fact he has really bad eyesight!) but the best guy in the film has to be Taam Chui! Not only does he have his own character ( Ah Sung, jackie's cousin) he also doubles for almost everyone in the movie!! He is so physically talented (i think he studied Wu Shu at the same academy as Jet Li and Jackie) that he was obviously hired by Yuen Woo Ping to do the lightning fast jumping kicks and spins that other people simply can't do! He doubles for Billy Chau, Mark Cheng, Yue Hoi and even Jackie Wu at one stage! As Darren Shahavi once said in an interview "that guys the best kicker i've ever seen!" and that's coming from someone as physically talented as Darren! Taam is by far the most talented martial artist in the film (even with a cast like Billy Chau , Jackie Wu and Yue Hoi!) He is even assistant action director too! This film is a top five favourite of mine and is quite simply a classic of the genre! It's full of great acting, superb fights and as always good direction by Yuen Woo Ping. Should be enjoyable to just about anyone and a Kung Fu must see for fight fans everywhere!If you haven't seen it, go see it now!

Tai Chi 2 stars a great martial artist, Jackie Wu. He looks like a young Jet Li! His martial arts are fast, crisp and smooth. This movie is filled with action and martial arts! Jackie wu does some great Wu Shu and Tai Chi here. Yuen Woo Ping directed it and it shows. It includes the villain in Fong Sai Yuk (the bald guy, Chuen-Hua Chi) and the pimp ass Tai Chi master in all of the Shaolin Temple movies and in Tai Chi Master (Yu Hai), and the badass general in Fist of Legend and many other movies (Billy Chow).

His character is a bit of a smartass, but it works well within the story. Its a cute story and every five minutes of so...boom great martial arts sequences! :) This is one of my personal favez, because of the fresh new Jackie Wu, who later went on to star in the Hong Kong TV Series Shaolin Temple directed by none other than Yuen Woo Ping.

After seeing it a few times, this is my conclusion. First, there seems to be two plots: one is that some English tuxedo-wearing guys are smuggling opium to China, the other is a boy-wants-girl love story.

One reviewer said it takes place about the year 1900 -- I couldn't have guessed from just watching the movie. Other flaws seems to be that it is unclear where it takes place. "In a village, somewhere in China." Yet there is a nearby town or village where they, unknown to all main characters, are sacrificing children (!) in a seemingly recurrent ritual. How can they not know about this? Later, this incident is never talked of again, and this and several other incidents make me wonder, why there are so many subplots.

Quite a few things don't make sense in the film... Don't understand why it even called "tai chi 2". It doesn't have anything in common with Tai Chi 1 (tai chi master). And the officer to which Rose was engaged is also an enigma: is he good or bad? I felt sorry for him anyways -- he was just trying to do his job and start a family, but everyone seemed to dislike him.

The acting is overall like the others said: decent, but not very spectacular. All though they could have mentioned the mother and father are very enjoyable to watch. Maybe a good thing would be if the story was focused more on the family life. Or focused on, well, *anything*, instead of diverse itself like it did.

Note that the first scene takes place 10 years before the rest of the film. They could have mentioned this. And why why couldn't they have bothered making a decent ending....

Enjoyable little thing though, thanks to its action and humour!! Recommendable!! 7 / 10.