Once Upon a Time in China and America
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Jet Li, Hung Yan Yan, Rosamund Kwan, Joe Sayah

In this 6th and final (as for now) episode in the OUATIC series, Wong Fei Hung, his partner Seven (Hung Yan Yan), and Aunt Yee (Rosamund Kwan) travel to America to visit the newly established Po Chi Lam by Fu (I think). Due to the anti-Chinese additude there, Fei Hung and his friends find trouble in the West.

So Fei Hung goes West. Does that mean fighting against white guys? Yep. Does that mean guns? Yep. Does that mean no wires anymore? Nope. BUT!! Hung Yan Yan is in this and creates a character EQUALLY as powerful on screen as Jet Li does, and the two of them look great as a team, especially since I've only seen Hung Yan Yan as either a villian (Heroes Among Heroes) or a small supporting role as a good guy (Tai Chi 2). In the beginning, we get to see lots of his moves, as well as Jet's, but Jet does the same Fei Hung thing as he did in his other movies. This martial arts here was directed by Sammo Hung, which explains the editing issues that I'll go into later. But Jet still looks good, using an umbrella to beat up some American Indians (which I'll also go into later) and the wirework kicks that he did in all his other OUATIC movies, but here they're not bad looking because of Sammo's style of editing (if that's really what it was, though maybe Tsui Hark edited it and changed how he handled how wirework looked). Lots of triple bike kicks going up the front of an opponent. Hung Yan Yan, though, has his own style, and I wonder exactly how he's built. Since he's extremely agile and quick, I would assume he's not too big, yet at the same time he is fast in the way that if he wants to go over there, he starts off at full speed. Wow, it's cool looking. He gets 3 small parts in the beginning just kicking people, and it made the first part of OUATICAA worthwhile. Not to say that Jet isn't good anymore, it's just that he needs sidekicks like this more often, not idiots like in High Risk with Jackie Cheung, who is funny but can't look good in a fight. Hung Yan Yan, on the other hand, is serious and bad tempered (it would seem), and just has that look on his face like he's ready to put a hole in you. Very VERY fast kicks, and as I said, he goes from one guy to another in no time at all. It's short but sweet.



Hung Yan Yan finds himself in a bar surrounded by cowboys about 20 minutes later through the movie and does some more kicks, but he's wire assisted and it wasn't very impressive to me.



When he fights Jet, though, then we get to see some hand to hand combat which is both well choreographed and economical. Fei Hung blocks as long as he can, hits whenever he can and as long as it's efficient, and then kicks to get Yan Yan away. By the way, Hung Yan Yan seemed to be doing his own stunts in this movie. Is that Sammo's doing? Yan Yan did some big falls, including one onto his back from pretty high up. Was that him? Very good if so. The two of them do some good fighting here, and get into a staff fight after Seven (Yan Yan's character) tries to remind Fei Hung that he's himself (he has amnesia), so he plays Iron Robe Yim (Yan Yee Kwan, in OUATIC1) and Lam (Donnie Yen, in OUATIC2). Funny and well choreographed. Yan Yan has comedic charisma when acting like a fool!



You have to wait until the end of the movie for another fight, though. It's all story in this gap, but still interesting. It's a reminder of how the Westerners treated the Chinese when they came for fortune. Even though the story has been told so many times, it's still interesting, especially with an American Po Chi Lam that later signals the start of China Town.

Jet fights Joe Sayah and to be honest, I wasn't impressed. Sayah didn't stand a chance, but still got up and tried to look tough. His shoulders and waist weren't in motion with the rest of his body when he was throwing punches, and his kicks were boring, not to mention they used lots of wires when they got inside the saloon. Jet's moves were well done, and he and Sayah had one cool piece where Sayah kicked over Jet, and Jet followed up with a kick up behind his back into Sayah's back. You'd have to see to understand. But the fight overall wasn't so great. This was a letdown and I was really pissed at the thought of the movie ending this way, but no, Hung Yan Yan gets his ending scene against a big beefcake. Beefcake shoots at Seven, he kicks and the bullet goes into his foot. That's cool. So Yan Yan, again, impressed me with a flurry of kicks that were high and accurate. Lots of chained kicks, and some hand movements, and then the scene was over. Jet is shown again with Sayah on top of a windmill and the camera moved out a little so we could see more of what was happening (I'll get into the camera later), but still it was Jet's fight and Sayah was just attacking, but really blocking. They fall and it's over.



Now, I'll start with the video cd version of this, the China Star one. DON'T GET IT. If you can, get the DVD, VHS, or other VCD because they cropped this one from the widescreen version. That's terrible. Get the unsubtitled original Chinese one if you want because you can probably understand the story without subs because the whities speak English anyways. All of the fights are tainted because of the cropped effect, and it's obviously cropped because the subtitles reach outside the screen, like in OUATIC1. That said, the camera was too close and moved WAY too fast most of the time. Occasionally the fights were filmed from far away and you could see what was happening, but if it was filmed indoors, forget it. Maybe this is my VCD's issue but it's an issue nonetheless and it's MY REVIEW, so I'm mad and you're gonna hear about it. The last fight, especially, wasn't filmed well. Lots of the time we got Sayah's hands, and that was it. Where the hell is Jet? Over on the right somewhere. Where's Sayah's face? On the left somewhere. Bad bad, so if it's the camera, it sucked, if it's the vcd, it sucks so don't get this version.

Finally, I said I'd talk about the Indians in the movie. During the first scene, Indians attacked for, as it would seem, no reason. I don't want to be an ethicist here, but I thought that Fei Hung would have wondered why people would attack this way before he went about slaughtering them. Then again, he's probably as ignorant about it as any 3 year old who watches western movies with his dad. Indians were here, whities came and killed Indians, took their land, they want it back, but they shouldn't attack, right? But, Fei Hung ends up in a tribe and makes friends with them so I had a sigh of relief. What was missing here, though? He never gave a decent speech about what he was thinking. In OUATIC2, he said that man cannot depend on gods buy must depend on himself after he massacred the entire White Lotus Cult in 5 minutes on his own. Here, though, we get no output from him. So, it's almost as though OUATIC 4 and 5 were like forgetting periods and things all of a sudden got less serious, where OUATIC3 was just dumb in itself. I dunno, maybe I'm going into it too much.

This movie needed more action, and let me point something out here. There was a guy Hung Yan Yan was about to fight who looked like a good kicker, but he was shot in the head later on. Why did they do this? Instead, Yan Yan beats up Brutis at the end. There was potential there, and it was lost. More action, better cameramen, needs widescreen, and less Sayah. I know the guy studies wing chun, but he looks terrible. They should have shot him and had some other Chinese guy come in and fight Jet. Why can't I get as much out of this movie series as so many other people do? Why wasn't I entirely impressed by the first two, let alone this one? I know that the 3rd one was lame, and 4 and 5 have Chiu Man Cheuk, who I can't IMAGINE being Fei Hung unless he grew a beard or something, so what's missing? I'll tell you. WHAT I WANT is missing. I want clear martial arts, no wires, no doubles, no fast cuts, and dammit no lion dancing (OUATIC3). Less weapons (OUATIC2), more hand to hand combat. This just isn't my style, and it pains me so much that I wonder if I'll have to watch the series over for it's plot (ARGH!! MY ETHICS ARE BEING RE-WRITTEN!!). I'm gonna up the score for OUATIC2 to a 9 at the cost of this one, which I give a

6/10 - It hurts me too, but the series needed more. OUATIC2 was awesome, OUATIC1 was good, but none of them made me jump out of my seat (that I've seen anyways, I should still get 4 and 5, damn..). This series is for those who want martial arts that exceed human capabilities, but I don't want that. I want martial arts that are human, but awesomely human at the same time, so awesome that I want to go out there and try to do them myself. But can I fly in the air? No. Can I spin 30 times in the air and kick everyone in the room? Nope. But can I fall from a clock tower through 2 canopies and land on my neck like in Project A? Of course, anyone can do that, and if you learn, you can do it correctly. I watch movies like that to awe at the actors' abilities to do possible yet extreme things. This is why I can't totally dig the OUATIC series.

UPDATE 10/9 - Rating System Change

3/5

UPDATE - 1/31/01 - Rating Change

2/5 - After watching this movie again to do the screen captures, I really can't stand it. The action is filmed terribly and the choreography wasn't on par with other OUATICs (all 2 of the others that had good choreography anwyays_. Waste of talent.

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