True Legend

[Drunk Monk]

True Legend is Yuen Woo Ping's homage to the golden age kung fu genre mated with Hollywood's trend towards comic book blockbusters. It's a creation legend film like the first installment of the Batman/Superman/Spiderman/Iron Man franchises, but this time, it's Zhou Wenzhou Beggar Su. I've always liked Zhou. I felt he got a raw deal trying to fill Jet Li's shoes for OUATIC. He was great in Blade. As for Woo Ping, he remains the master of comic book choreography. Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Kill Bill, Fearless, Forbidden Kingdom, Kung Fu Hustle - these are superhero fight scenes, with all the outrageous physics and delicious gratuitous high flying wire work. It's hilarious stuff - wonderfully entertaining if you can suspend belief for a spell. And Woo Ping delivers here. There's some fresh ideas in his comic book choreography, along with some nice single shot sequences over a dozen complex exchanges, as well as an absurd SPOILER pro wrasslin' finale END SPOILER. If you like hard hitting realism in your kung fu films, this is not the film for you. But if you like superhero movies, this is pretty entertaining. This is what Storm Warriors should have been.

Chollywood CGI is still lagging. A lot of the CGI backgrounds are dream sequences, so that is forgivable. And the videogame quality of the CGI environments is redeemed with some gorgeous panoramic scenery.

I was put off by the flow of the film. It's a classic "hero is defeated>hero hides to train>hero takes revenge" tale, but there's a false ending. After the revenge is served, then there's more, and I was like "there's more?" That could have been cut out for a much tighter film, but I was amused at where it went, even if it undid the film's story arc.

The kid was really annoying, especially in the end. The love story with Zhou Yun was a bit trying, although Zhou was cute and there was something romantic and kinky about her sweating into the vats. The cameos from Cung, Michelle and David were spot on. I wasn't quite as bothered by Jay Chou as he had on this hysterical costume that reminded me of classic Shaw Brothers flicks. It's a gorgeous film overall and when the fight scenes hit, it's signature Woo Ping magic.

I would have enjoyed this film 100 times more if I saw it in 3D. It's perfect for 3D, even post production 3D. I doubt it'll get released theatrically in the U.S. however, as Americans aren't used to seeing the white villain caricatures. That would be as popular here as Red Dawn 2010 will be in China.

[Drunk Monk]

It was much more entertaining. I definite DOOM flick. The kid is painfully whiny.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

It's the birth of Drunken style! But you don't know that until late in the film. It was a weird progression of a film. It's almost like "Hey the film is done. What do you mean it's only sixty minutes long? Well we better go film some more stuff"
The fight scenes were good. I especially liked it when the fight scene happened to be in a room full of jars. And not a single jar was broken. No really. Maybe not really. They find a lot of fun places to fight. In wells, over a river, on a raised platform surrounded by tigers. Who does that?

There seemed to be a huge shift in tone when they decided they needed to do more movie. The first was sort of fantasy historic china deal complete with the Gods of Wushu and then you got this semi-realistic 19th century lets get the foreign invaders out of here mega-fight. Could have Carradine delivered his lines any more woodenly? And because of Carradine, I thought his group were Americans. But if you watch the extras, which I did, they were a group of Russians.

But it was fun. Definitely a DOOM film.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Did Yuen Wu Ping completely rip off the prison from Kung Fu Panda for the opening of this film?