Film: Legend Of The Fist: The Return Of Chen Zhen
Release date: 31st January 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 102 mins
Director: Andrew Lau Wai-keung
Starring: Donnie Yen, Shu Qi, Anthony Wong, Huang Bo, Zhou Yang
Genre: Action/Drama/History/Martial Arts
Studio: Metrodome
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: Hong Kong/China
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?
In this sequel to the mid-90s television remake of Bruce Lee’s Fist Of Fury, Legend Of The Fist sees Chen Zhen returning from fighting in World War One and assuming the identity of a fallen comrade in order to evade the Japanese Imperialists who believed that he died years before.
Becoming a partner in the famed Casablanca nightclub in Shanghai, run by the likeable Mr Liu (Wong), he falls for the charms of Kiki (Shu Qi) a beautiful singer/hostess at the club, not knowing that she is really a Japanese spy.
As the Japanese Imperial might grows stronger and more impressive, Chen’s sense of righteousness prevents him from simply sitting in the shadows. Adopting a secret identity as ‘The Masked Warrior’, he stalks the streets at night and sabotages the Japanese villains’ assassination attempts, quickly becoming a scourge of the Imperialists, and a mythologized hero to the locals.
Challenged to a wager by the evil Colonel Chikarasishi (Kohata), whereby they bet on how many dissident Chinese intellectuals the Japanese can assassinate before ‘The Masked Warrior’, Chen Zhen is drawn deeper and deeper into a desperate fight for freedom…
Opening with an intense First World War/No Man’s Land sequence featuring Donnie Yen in super-heroic mode, Legend Of The Fist establishes an extremely arresting visual style that sets the tone for a classic extravaganza of action. Along the way, the ‘classic’ adjective begins to fade, but the film remains very much the kind of thrilling fight movie that Hong Kong and China do better than anyone else.
This opening sequence, featuring Yen’s Chen Zhen battling German soldiers with just his fists, feet and occasional knives, is pure cinematic adrenaline - Lau’s stylised visuals and Yen’s kinetic choreography creating a comic book-like Saving Private Ryan. Not only does the intensity and breathtaking action set a bar so high that what follows does not always clear it, but its brief exploration of the experience of Chinese labourers conscripted (in lieu of an army) to aid the British in World War One is fascinating and unfamiliar - and instantly compelling. By the time the film returns to 1920s Shanghai, one can’t help feeling that they are leaving a more interesting film (perhaps even several) behind to tell the kind of story we’ve seen many times before.
The comic book sensibility of the prologue is retained in a very colourful depiction of occupied Shanghai, which is a pleasing layer of a gloss on a film that settles into a straightforward story of rebellion, plotting, counter-plotting and treachery, enlivened mostly by Anthony Wong’s gravitas, Shu Qi’s luminescent star quality (never more in evidence), and the presence of Donnie Yen promising that some sort of wicked beat-down is never too far away.
The film aims for political intrigue, but keeps it mostly hinted-at and often off-screen. It might play well for local audiences who can fill in the gaps, but these gaps will be occasionally frustrating for an international viewer. The filmmakers do little to prompt us to care about the story and characters beyond painting very distinct shades of good (the Chinese) and evil (everyone else, especially the Japanese). Most interesting, and even troubling, from a cinema point of view, is the presence of Gordon Chan in the credits, as both producer and co-writer. Chan directed the 1994 remake of Fist Of Fury, starring Jet Li as Chen Zhen and, in that film, showed at least a willingness to take an even-handed approach to his depiction of the Japanese. Sixteen years later and that even-handedness is sacrificed in favour of a straight-faced, chest-thumping nationalism, which is uncomfortably close to propaganda. Without seeking to excuse the atrocities of Imperialist Japanese of the era, nor dismiss the suffering of the Chinese of the time, one nevertheless is prompted to ponder if the filmmakers might be better served taking a colder, more distant view of the historical period - with several characters having monologues about the importance of national unity, making references to the list of foreign forces throughout history who tried and failed to overrun China, it is inescapable that the film aims to speak to contemporary audiences, as though China still fights the battles of centuries ago. A cause for concern, yes, but also fascinating from an academic standpoint.
But the nationalism question is really one for the viewers to informally discuss after the credits have rolled. There is more to Legend Of The Fist, though perhaps not as much more as a film this expensive warrants. It is overly straightforward, at times frustratingly so, the script doing nothing to elicit audience sympathy beyond piling one Japanese atrocity upon another (assassination, hanging, torture, rape), near-pummelling the viewer into agreeing that vengeance must be sought, even if we’re not angrily clamouring for it ourselves.
The film’s opening act - after the ingenuous prologue - serves to get all its characters in place so as to justify the action sequences most punters are paying for. Unfortunately, this results in something of a plodding, listless narrative in which one struggles to fathom certain characters’ motivations and aims, and many seem to have none at all - for example, Anthony Wong’s sympathetic nightclub owner has no real objective other than to keep his club open and leave his hands clean of blood (admirable, to be sure, but the character hovers around the story, adding no drive or momentum to the narrative). Chen Zhen is on a crusade to protect Chinese dissidents from the oppressive Japanese but, aside from an intriguing wager made between Chen and the Japanese villain Chikarasishi (that would have perhaps made the basis for an excellent action film all on its own), the film seems to assume that ‘fighting the Japanese’ is all the justification that is required.
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. A low-key dialogue scene between Chen Zhen and Kiki, where each almost stumble upon the other’s real identity, is an alienating mix of repetitive questioning and overblown fake-outs, none of which creates any suspense. This romantic subplot (which develops along a pleasantly chaste and subtle trajectory) culminates in an emotional climax that would have had immense impact had their earlier flirtation been relatable. The actors work hard, and have chemistry, but the filmmakers give them little to work with beyond the expectation that the audience simply ‘knows’ the beautiful leading lady and debonair leading man must have feelings for each other. Viewers have been conditioned to expect more convincing humanity from Andrew Lau.
More curious is Lau’s liberal use of homage - not just Bruce Lee in general, but The Dark Knight (the framing and general presentation of Yen’s ‘Masked Warrior’ is highly reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s depiction of Batman) and even Mad Men (Chen Zhen’s identity swap) - which effectively stamps out the directorial voice that boomed so loudly through every frame of his Young And Dangerous series. Indeed, Legend Of The Fist draws direct comparison with some of Lau’s misfires from a decade ago - Storm Riders and A Man Called Hero - where his feel for character and moral ambiguity could not coexist with the demands of a big budget epic movie. Legend Of The Fist is better than both those films, but it does not come close to the cinematic brilliance of Lau’s Triad movies.
Lau benefits from a committed cast that works very hard. Donnie Yen has perhaps always carried himself like a leading man but, here, he confirms his status as a peer of, rather than successor to, Jackie Chan or Jet Li. Infusing his natural, unsuppressible ‘badassery’ with the stoically righteous and relatable qualities that first came to the fore in Ip Man, Yen holds the movie together, and keeps the audience on his side even when they’re not always sure what, exactly, he wants to gain beyond beating up Japanese people. He may be no Bruce Lee, but he is a magnificent Donnie Yen.
Legend Of The Fist is an event movie, and it has an event movie cast. Frequent Lau collaborator Anthony Wong is an immense asset to the film, bringing life to a character not given much by the script. Shu Qi, always growing and improving, manages to garner sympathy for a plot device. Shawn Yue turns up in an under-written role as the son of an off-screen Chinese General, whose motives and allegiances aren’t always clear. Huang Bo does well in the one comic-relief role in the film, even if his Inspector character oscillates between cowardly and upstanding at the script’s convenience.
Of course, plot and characterisation aren’t the main course for aficionados of this genre, and Donnie Yen, as action director, ensures that fight fans eat heartily with Legend Of The Fist. His recent output since his ground-breaking work on Kill Zone is very much ‘a tale of two Donnies’. There is the hard-hitting, grounded and realistic fight staging of Kill Zone and Flashpoint, where Yen shows a keen awareness of mixed martial arts and a commitment to authenticity; the other side of the coin is the over-the-top, outrageous excesses of films like Dragon Tiger Gate - and it is into this category that Legend Of The Fist falls. While Yen incorporates flashes of Jiu-Jitsu and even Wing Chun into his action here, the emphasis is squarely on comic-book style, almost supernatural feats that, in the wrong hands, can alienate an audience. Yen’s creativity with the OTT fight scenes is unmatched in this era, but there remains throughout Legend Of The Fist the niggling suspicion that, had he toned it down, it would have boosted the intensity of the fight scenes, and made us care in ways that the script simply does not. Had he lived, there is no doubt that Bruce Lee would have certainly approved of Yen’s cinematic mixed martial arts trailblazing; it is interesting to ponder what he would made of this updating of his Chen Zhen character.
This is not to take away from the action on show, for it is clearly the main reason to catch Legend Of The Fist. Always exciting, always breathtaking, and never predictable, it will hopefully ensure a decent cinema and DVD run for this movie - and if it prompts new converts to check out some of Yen’s superior back catalogue, then so much the better.
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. JN
