Fist of Legend
Review
Format: Dubbed DVD
Stars: Jet Li, Chin Siu Ho, Yasuaki Kurata, Billy Chow Bei Li
This is the review for the US DVD release.
The Japanese are trying to take over China. In order to make a big impression, they poison the master of Jing Wu Mun, and Yi Tung (Chin Siu Ho) and Chen Zhen (Jet Li) work together through hatred and friendship to prevent the Japanese from capturing Shanghai, and then the entirety of China.
It's a good plot, actually. Kept me busy. But, there's something that's extremely disappointing about this DVD release. They changed the dialogue drastically. I mean, there are some things left out that made me go red in the face. For instance, Yasuaki Kurata is talking to Li and points his finger like a gun, but he's not talking about a gun. In the subtitled version, though, he's making a great point, but here he's making some generalization about making the opponent change. Though it's somewhat interesting, in the REAL dialogue it hit me hard, but this stuff was just boring and lame. Also, all they say is Jing Wu, and sometimes Jing Wu Man. Ok, whatever, it doesn't matter. It's dubbed, nothing else could be wrong, except the sound effects and music. Now, the sound effects are good, except for the Matrix-swoosh sound whenever someone makes a movement. I don't like that. And the music is terrible. Same time-bomb-countdown music for every single fight. I'd rather hear the horn style ballad of the original. That got me going much better than this BS.
So, don't get the American dubbed Fist of Legend. 2/10. End of review.
Just kidding. There's a lot more to it of course. I might also add that every fight is expertly done. Nothing slacks. Jet Li, Chin Siu Ho, Kurata, Chow, and everyone else do such a great job that I thought that I could get out there and do my own fist tomorrow. That's a good impression. That's what Knockabout did to me. For instance, the first fight has Jet against a group of around 15 Japanese students, either Kendo or Aikido or something, I can't tell, because at one point they're using swords, then another point they do hand to hand combat, but they looked like Aikido uniforms. Too bad they didn't mention what they were. Could have added to it quite a bit. But anyways, Jet is very quick in this first scene, taking each one and either throwing their shoulder out of its socket or dislocating a jaw, or how about an axe kick down on top of a knee? Sound good? It's disgusting, really, but it's good.
Jet also has another encounter with Japanese students, many more this time. He's basically got a solo scene here, showing nasty kicks and extremely fast whipping punches. And I've never actually seen him hold his foot at face level on another person before, very good. See, I've never liked group on 1 fights, but this one's good, as was the first one. How is that? It's Jet. He's a tough guy in this, and holds his own. He's inspiring, and has more charisma than even his Wong Fei Hung role in my opinion. After he polishes the students, he fights their master. This is a shorter fight, lasting maybe a minute 30, and it's not bad really. The Japanese guy uses chops and stuff that looks like Japanese martial arts, so I really can't complain. Jet uses his stance where he kicks guys in the shins to make them bend over and then pops them in the face. Excellent, again.
Another fight, this time a weapons fight, among the Jing Wu Mun students and the Japanese students, is good also! Chin Siu Ho gets a staff and does serious damage, then breaks it in half and does twice the damage, all in good style. The Japanese use swords, and there's a lot of stuff going on here. Everyone does a great job.
Chin Siu Ho fights an unknown (to me), which showed me first how capable Ho is. Chin Siu Ho moves around in his own fashion, with more smoothness and he takes things all the way as far as he can, whereas Jet Li is short and to the point. It shows during the duel between the two of them, which is very impressive. There is some minor wirework, but I say right now that it doesn't detract from the fight. It's well done, and shows power instead of "Look I can jump 15 feet in the air". Jet and Ho do the fight so well, and everything flows like nothing I've really seen before. I've seen equivilant fights, but usually they're short. But these fights are LONG, and I mean like 2 or 4 minutes long, and I bet the last one went on for a good 5 minutes, which I'll get into later. This one is great, like I keep saying. The kicks are all great, every punch really goes as far as it can in terms of offense, and powder is used very VERY well, to the point where it hurt me to watch. Jet Li ends up in a boxing stance, and, wow, he can box! REALLY WELL TOO!! You'd think that all this time Jet could only do the open arms open hands stance, WELL YOU'D BE WRONG PAL! He looks like a pro. And Chin Siu Ho still holds his own, doing good maneuvers and parries. Great stuff, expertly done fight. There's one move where Ho does a jumping reverse roundhouse, Jet ducks, Ho goes sweeping, knocks him down, and does another sweep later, and it just picks up Jet, who goes for the one-arm-on-the-ground-soccer-kick to the neck! Awesome, I wanna do that.
Jet Li fights Yasuaki Kurata, and if you wanna see a man who has some serious skills at an old age (I imagine the guy's in his 40's now), watch this movie. He's amazing. Very VERY talented, and he easily matches, and then beats Jet Li in this fight. Throwing, chops, kicks, punches, throws, more throws, acrobatics, it's all here. Jet and this guy work so well together it's scary, and just to prove it, since the wind is blowing and Kurata's eyes were hurting (in the movie of course), they wore blindfolds!!! Totally awesome fighting. Every move was meditated upon, you could tell. Whenever I saw something happening, I took notice, and rejoiced. This is how excited I got over this movie. They throw eachother around in ways I've never seen before, repeatedly!
Lastly, Jet fights Billy Chow. Here's the grand finale of grand finales, really. It has everything. Spins, kicks, broken arms, broken trees, kicks through statues, stones braking, wood breaking, axe kicks, throws, belt-fu, a sword (at the end), JET JUMP KICKING CHOW WITHOUT THE GUY MOVING BACKWARDS AN INCH! Chow is amazing!! HELL ANYONE WHO FOUGHT IN THIS MOVIE IS AMAZING! There wasn't a moment in this fight where I thought, "Well, this is getting stupid." NO! Even my friend who detests watching these fights loved this fight. I can see why, easily. It's more kickboxing than Chinese martial arts, and that's the point. Chow uses kickboxing, and Jet had to adapt, as Kurata instructed him. Chow destroys everything in his path. The guy is a kickboxer's nightmare. Every kick he sends has a 6'2 body weighing more than 190 pounds following it. He uses his hip, and then adds his knee. That's how someone his height can look so good. Richard Norton, he can't move. Billy Chow, he can move. Incredible. Jet Li performs equally, once doing a backflip-kick on Chow's chin, reminiscent of Bruce Lee's (actually Yuen Wah's, Lee's double here) in Enter the Dragon. I can't mention everything in these fights, I'd have to go into 3 seizures and then write a novel, really. The martial arts in Fist of Legend is LEGENDARY. DON'T MISS THIS MOVIE!! GET THE SUBTITLED DVD AND PREPARE TO LIVE IN FRONT OF THE SCREEN FOR 2 HOURS!
10/10
UPDATE - 10/9 - Let me remind you all that the last fight is ten minutes long. It must have taken months to do this one scene. All the more credit to Li and Chow and the rest of the team.
UPDATE 10/9 - Rating System Change
5/5
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