I found time and motivation over the weekend to write up some movie reviews, so I'll be posting them this week. Hopefully they will be spaced out by some other blog topics, lest I become a one-man Rotten Tomatoes, but today there's just this. I was busy running errands and working on some real life stuff, and then I spent a few hours alpha
testing with some urgency, for a release date
has been announced (October 31st), and now I'm posting this before I spend a few more hours on RL work stuff.
Jet Li is
Fearless! Or so said the trailers. And he was, though it's debatable whether his fearlessness stems from an internal conviction, or simply a complete lack of emotional range. A hint; far and away Jet's best acting performance to date was in
Unleashed, when he played an emotionally stunted man who basically had the mind of a canine and spent 90% of the film staring blankly out windows, at pianos, etc. It's a pity they can't change the Terminator robot to a short, pock-marked Chinese man, since that would really be Jet's ideal role.
I saw this pic with Malaya and another friend of ours: three Jet Li fans, three martial arts fans; who exited the theater, stood in the daylight, and stood silently for a moment. Finally, someone, probably me, said, "So that sucked... right?" That comment opened the floodgates, and we spent the next ten minutes in a mutual gripe fest about how stupid the plot was, how unintentionally humorous acting was, how many laws of physics were broken in every fight scene, how painful the dialogue was, etc.
To the scores:
Scores:
Fearless
Script/Story: 2
Acting/Casting: 5
Action: 7
Eye Candy: 7
Fun Factor: 5
Replayability: 5
Overall: 3
Malaya and I were very disappointed in this film, and coming after the disappointing Hero and House of Flying Daggers, we basically gave up on wuxia for the time being, and didn't even consider buying tickets to
Curse of the Golden Flower, the next/most recent gorgeous martial arts themed epic to emerge from China.
In retrospect, nearly a decade later,
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which I have got to add a review for some day) was quite the outlier. It was a huge success and showed that martial arts movies didn't have to be chop sockey, or low budget Steven Segal/Chuck Norris Hollywood crap, and it introduced the high production values style wuxia that we see in the US. It was also a really good movie, with great marital arts and special effects, but also with a good story that was driven by strong, flawed, realistic characters.
Hero and Fearless and
House of Flying Daggers and others all look just as good, and they've got martial arts and good actors in them, but as movies, they've sucked. They are pretty, but the characters and performances have been mediocre, and the stories have been romance fiction junk, laced with creepy amounts of propaganda, all of it Chinese nationalism and very pro-emperor.
For instance, the whole point of
Hero was that the evil, conquering emperor was actually right in killing millions in his wars of conquest since the country could only be strong if it was united under one ruler, and if that meant destroying countless smaller cultures and cities, then so be it. China isn't ruled by an Emperor anymore, but the logical connection was that it's best if it's ruled by a strong central party.
Fearless isn't quite the same plot, but it's set in the early 1900s when China was occupied by the English, and Jet Li is the one Chinese man who is good enough at combat to beat the evil representatives of the US, England, Japan, etc. By doing so, in noble, heroic fashion, Jet Li can encourage his poor, downtrodden countrymen to rise up and overthrow their corrupt, capitalist oppressors and usher in a glorious era of mass starvation and ethnic cleaning.
I could overlook the silly propaganda of the storyline if the characters in the actual movie were any good. They are not. Here's the story,
with spoilers, and yes, it really is this painful a cliché:
- Jet Li's character is a child in the beginning. After his martial arts master father gets beaten by some asshole from a rival school Jet trains furiously, and becomes a master.
- A montage of Jet beating up all challengers and becoming famous and corrupted by the adulation.
- Eventually Jet picks a fight with the head of another school and beats him to death on his wedding night.
- After the fight Jet discovers the other guy was not at fault in an earlier incident.
- Wracked by guilt Jet wanders off into the countryside, where he wanders in a daze and grows a ZZ Top beard in like, a week.
- Lost and penniless and dirty, Jet ends up in a pastoral village where a saintly blind woman nurses him back to health.
- While living there and planting rice and eating simple food Jet rediscovers his soul and decency. The farmers are quite happy and content working 14 hours a day just to grow enough food not to starve to death, since once in a while the wind blows through the trees and they can stand up and stretch their aching, rice-planting backs and breath deeply while the bamboo leaves rustle.
- Healthy again, Jet returns to civilization, vowing never to fight again.
- Thirty seconds after he returns the evil and powerful men controlling China force him to fight to save his family and friends.
- He defeats all challengers, even though they cheat and fight with as much honor as the heel in a pro wrestling match.
- Just when it seems Jet will be triumphant, he's poisoned during a fight by a scheming capitalist Chinese businessman who is the only evil Chinese person in the entire film.
- Jet grows dizzy and weak and his vision blurs, but he's still able to defeat the last fighter, a Japanese samurai.
- The minute the fight ends Jet staggers theatrically into the arms of his countrymen and dies, a perfect inspiring martyr.
- Everyone lives happily ever after, except for the imperialist invaders, and the tens of millions purged, executed or starved during the various nationalist and communist upheavals of the 20th century.
Yes, it's a dumb action movie and yes, you almost expect this sort of "seen it a hundred times" hero journey, but it was so obvious and handled in such hamhanded a fashion in Fearless that Malaya, me, and a martial arts movie friend of ours were audibly groaning as the dreadful plot creaked through its predestined, telegraphed, machinations.
"Gee, I wonder if his dad will die and he'll be inspired to avenge him?"
"Oh, he's guilt-stricken and in exile. I sure wonder if he'll find some noble savage to heal his broken heart?"
"Wow, he's back and vowing never to fight again. I just don't know if there will be some crisis to force him back into the ring."
"Oooh, evil imperialists. I just have no idea if Jet Li will smite them down in noble fashion."
We wanted to like it, and the martial arts sections were pretty good, if a bit too obviously wire-fu and defying of the laws of physics. (Which is fine if the movie's magical and everyone can fly, ala Crouching Tiger. But when it's realistic in every way, until people start jumping five meters straight up and changing direction in mid-air, or a tiny Chinese man seesaw lifts a giant white wrestler who clearly weighs three times what he does, it breaks the illusion.)
All that said, I'd probably buy this one for $6 as a used DVD, if only to fast forward over all the plot and just watch the action scenes.
Labels: jet li, movie review
