Fearless (2006)

Jet Li has some excellent fight scenes from fight choreographer Yuen Wo Ping. "Fearless" is based on the true life story of Huo Yuanjia, who took on all foreign fighters during a time of Chinese occupation and boosted national morale. It's a story that's ripe with possibilities, but it's sadly used as merely an excuse to stage one fight after another. Another disappointment is that director Ronny Yudoesn't bring a lot of style or energy to the fights nearly as well as Li's other frequent collaborators like Corey Yuen or Tsui Hark. Still, Jet LI is amazing and Yuen Woo Ping always delivers the goods, and that is more than enough to carry this film.

Martial arts films tend to be rather over the top and fantastic in tone as a norm. As such it's refreshing to see one taking place in recent history and featuring actual historical people.Fearless tells the tale of Huo Yuanjia, the prodigious son of a long line of martial arts practitioners, who grows in the late 19th century China, in a nation that's buckling under the Western pressure and occupation. We see him growing from a cocky young fighter into a man that in his own way tried to preserve and protect the ideal that was and still is China.In my opinion this is Jet Li's finest film. He's everything the role needs him to be and then some. Absolutely perfect casting and one of the films where you can see that he actually has a lot of acting talent as well. Sure he can probably identify a lot with the role, but that only makes him so much better for the role. He can also pull off the more serious tone of the story in comparison to usual martial arts ware. Someone like Jackie Chan would be too comical and not arrogant enough for the role.Aside from that, it's a professionally done film. The production values are very high, the whole film looks and sounds great, the story has enough soul and depth behind it to convince and it's interesting to follow. The need to follow a historical story does make some of the plot twists seem a bit weird, because the film doesn't have enough time to give us the whole context, but that never becomes a major problem.Fearless is an excellent film to pick if you're looking for a more serious take on the martial arts genre, without giving up any of the quality or enjoyability.

Fearless is directed by Ronny Yu and co-written by Chris Chow, Christine To, Wang Bin and Li Feng. It stars Jet Li, Dong Yong, Nakamura Shido II, Collin Chou and Betty Sun. Music is by Shigeru Umebayashi and cinematography by Poon Hang-sang. Film is a loose telling of the life of Huo Yuanjia, a Chinese martial artist who was involved in a number of high profile fights that sought to restore pride to China before the birth of the Republic of China.An historical action drama that delivers quality fights and gorgeous photography, Fearless still isn't all that it should be. In what should be a celebration of Yuanjia's life, sprawled out on an epic canvas, we instead get Ronny Yu (The 51st State/Freddy vs Jason) showcasing his action prowess whilst rendering the human interest factors as being bland. Yes, the action is vibrant, exciting and at times spellbinding, and Li remains a watchable star in spite of his acting limitations, but the slow crawl through the second half leaves the film in desperate need of an assured story telling hand. Which sadly it doesn't get. 6/10

The grandeur and the simplicity of this martial arts epic root it in its history and milieu, and makes of the old China a tale that is at once a powerful myth and an expression of love for the simple truths evident in the hearts and minds of decent people, just as the greatest Hollywood Westerns showed America in an exemplary light as the product of the epic strivings of their emerging nation. Gunfight duels or wushu contests, the only difference is that China was then striving to re-emerge from foreign domination. Probably - pace the noble efforts of John Ford - this Chinese martial-arts film can praise and raise up for admiration and emulation its own heroes with a better conscience than the American western, since in the latter the victims are objectively the native Americans, who are only infrequently and Pyrrhically shown besting the white man - but never ultimately prevailing.I feel sure there is also a feeling in this film for the samurai epics of Kurosawa; there is in 'Seven Samurai' (for instance) something of the same transformative value as shown in the - at first grudging - service of swaggering but down-on-their-luck samurai warriors as protectors of scared peasants as we see when the hero of 'Fearless' - Huo Yuan Jia - is rescued, both physically and morally, through the fortunate connection he develops with the people at the rural heart of China, whose honest peasant simplicity saves him from the wreck of his previous life as an arrogant bully and wastrel: Again, there is the humbling of heroism which demonstrates the ultimate refinement of primitive savagery into a civilized and civilizing value - true, unassuming, socially contributory, unselfish, self-sacrificing, pure heroism. 'Fearless' gives to each of these tragic poles of human striving - aggression and sacrifice - their full moral weight, being at once horrific and spiritually healing, in just the manner - in fact - of the great dramatic precursors of both the Chinese theatre (tellingly referenced in an early scene), and of the ancient Greek drama or Icelandic sagas which stand like stark crags dominating all our western cultural landscapes.This is a film worthy to stand alongside the pity, terror and moral dignity of the greatest westerns. It exists at a penetrating point of existential sublimity very far distant from the aimlessly pretty butterfly flutterings of a pretentious, overblown romantic fantasy such as that darling of effete tastes, 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.' Jet Li's portrayal of a great wushu warrior is every bit as noble a film hero as were any of the famous shootists of the Wild West whom Hollywood elevated to moral stature.