Tai Chi Chuan
AKA Revenge of the Tai Chi Master
12/24/00
Review
Format: Dubbed VHS
Stars: Many Many Mainlanders

Merry Christmas!
The plot here is your average someone-died-so-take-revenge plot, only this one focuses a lot on Tai Chi, something we don't see much of in HK films, not in its top form that is. Tai Chi Chuan (the movie) is not a two beat movie, though, but a fast period piece that should impress most HK film fans, especially the finale.

The credits role with the grand master and someone else doing real Tai Chi, which is neat if you want a good idea of what Tai Chi is. Yea, nuff said.



Fight 1: Some guards invade a house, which is the first scene in the movie. What you might notice here is that there isn't just one fight going on, but 2 at the same time, that is when they go inside the house. One guy is fighting someone with a fan, the other bad guy has a sword, and they're doing it at the same time, in the same scene, same shot. Which one do you watch? Well, maybe you should rewind it. Besides, the choreography is excellent, fast, and worth watching a few times. But, why are they attacking? It took me a second viewing to appreciate this fight because, frankly, without knowing the reason for their fighting, it was hard to pay attention, but know that there's a reason. And this fight is long too, something like 5 minutes long, not some sissy 30 seconds.



Ugh but this music plays all the time that sounds like a love scene out of a Marx Brothers movie, and that's the only music that plays too...

The next fight is in a restaraunt, with more intricate choreography, with up to 8 people on the screen fighting eachother at once, with a monk sitting in the background sipping tea as he watches it go on. The camera goes in close to each of the 4 fights and shows what's going on, and then goes back out to see everyone. Great choreography again, and like I said, it helps to know why they're fighting, so pay attention to the story.



What? Another fight? About, oh, two minutes after the one above, there's another battle, with just as many people too, but this one is only about 1:30 long, so you might not be impressed by it (sarcasm). More great group choreography, with everyone doing something at the same time.



Two of the main characters go out in the middle of nowhere and find two women doing Tai Chi at their house, and one of the guys challenges one of the women to a fight. More of silliness than anything, but she does real Tai Chi on him. The father of the girls knows the guy is watching, so he teaches Tai Chi wrong in the form of a chicken messing around, so, yea, old HK joke. Other things like various training scenes with the guys beating themselves up against big wooden poles, pushing balls into water, and learning pushing hands, which is also done on top of two pots.



And another fight, with more fast and good choreography, this time there are two 1 on 1's and a 2 on 1 against the general and his 2 goons. A minute long, maybe a little less. And you can see some Tai Chi from one of the girls.



One more in the general's mansion, with the good guys having swords, so I wasn't as impressed with this one as the others. 2 minutes long, about.



When the guys and gals go to the Shaolin temple, we get a great Shaolin demonstration from like 20 monks doing stuff all over the place in a courtyard. Some small fights, and one monk runs over another monk while standing. Standard Shaolin stuff I guess.



Ok, this next scene should be famous. 18 monks are practicing, when the evil general comes in with his 6 goons, highly talented goons that is, and the 6 of them fight against the 18 monks and it's incredible. Each monk does something, whether taking one of the guys by himself or in a group with other monks. When in a group, the monks gather and do acrobatics to take advantage of the foe, but when a monk isn't facing the opponent, he goes into a standing position where he just prays, and stands there until he has to attack again. Really incredible. I clocked this at 4:31 in length, and for 24 people, that's a lot of moving time. Rent this movie just to see this scene, really.



The last fight is ludicrous, and if it had wires, it would be Fong Sai Yuk, but the way it's portrayed, it seems possible. In the beginning, as the picture shows, about 60 or 70 people surround the 5 protagonists, each one with an additional enemy inside their little circle, and occasionally the outsiders will come in and fight as well, shortly of course. Eventually each guy has to take on every one of the outsiders as well as the harder opponent(s) inside, which makes for an interesting array of bodies all over the field. After they're all done for except the main guys, the main main guy, the general, brings down 3 guys dressed in all white and 3 dressed in all black, and they fight THEM next. After they're done with that, everyone takes on the general at the same time, and the last hit signals the last frame of the movie, THE END. I swear this fight was over 9 minutes long, I lost count seriously.



What an exhausting movie. The last two fights have so many people involved, and all the others alone beat most HK movies by the numbers. I don't know one single cast member from this movie, but whoever it was, I'm impressed by every one of them. Each person put it all into this movie, which made it so good, especially the monks. I recommend.

5/5

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