02-01-2015, 03:28 PM
This stars two personal friends - Phillip Ng, who is the lead (I know his father better than him actually) and Chan Koon Tai. Sammo is in it too. It's good but I'm biased. I place it in my top 5 2014 martial arts flicks. It's got style - filmed in sepia tones with highlight spot colors for things like jade bracelets or qipaos - akin to Schindler's List. It's also like a non-comic version of Kung Fu Hustle. Director Wong Jing must like to poach from filmmakers named 'steven'. Phillip does his best Chen Zhen from Fist of Fury, and manages to get away with it quite well as I believed he was a country bumpkin Kung Fu master, and know he is anything but a country bumpkin in real life. In an early scene, he takes out a double-nunchuk wielding foe, an amusing nod to Lee, given how the character is such an homage, even down to sticking his finger in his wounds when shirtless. The choreography is fun - a mix of wirework, CGI and some nice long single-shot sequences. It's over-the-top Yuen Woo Ping, akin to Rise of the Legend, but it works. There's also some Bollywood-esque scenes that work extraordinarily well - the first music number totally nails what it sets out to do. Not much sword work - some short swords (or long daggers) and lots of axes because it's Shanghai in the 1930s under the rule of the Axe gang.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
