Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2011)

The good parts of this movie include using Shangahi in the 20's as the backdrop for the romance between sultry lounge singer Shu Qi and world weary veteran Donnie Yen at the Casablanca Club. Targeted at the Chinese market however, the movie marches very quickly into mindless homages to Bruce Lee and the all consuming xenophobia & victimization themes we've become familiar with in modern Chinese movies.The numerous racial epithets ("white skinned dogs", "f****g Japanese pigs) and Communist slogans about the Chinese people make for a tiresome soundtrack to the wire-fu and political conflict.Jet Li's version of the story "Fist of Legend" is said to be far better.

Although the narrative gets convoluted at times, the historical setting of the Chinese labor corps sent to aid the allied war effort during world war 1 is historically factual ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Labour_Corps ), though it has been largely forgotten.the Chinese intelligentsia also successfully mounted pressure to cause Japan to delay full scale aggression until the 30s ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-One_Demands )this movie is essentially a big budget hong kong action movie produced as a homage to Bruce Lee. At times it strives to be too many homages at once with Donnie Yen resurrecting both Kato AND Chen Zhen ( Fist of Fury).It shouldn't be conceived as Chinese propaganda (anymore than any of the Bruce Lee movies were) or anti-Japanese, as long as you understand that the Chinese truly were the underdogs back then.in fact, the young Japanese actor playing the colonel totally stole the show.

First things first, the Martial Arts and action in this movie is quite impressive at times, though all in all you won't see anything you haven't seen before in some other MA movie. Dramaturgically, you get what you expect. Nothing fancy, completely predictable... and that is more or less fine by me, as this movie isn't supposed to be another Tiger&Dragon or some similar high quality movie coming out of China to stun the western audience. However, the thing that really bugs me is the not even subtle propaganda depicted in this movie. I was used to the general degree of Chinese propaganda thanks to Ip Man 1&2 as well as Zero. But this beast puts things to a whole new level. Not only are dialogs kept very simple at most times and we get 'interesting' lines like "See, Chinese are much stronger than Japanese" or "Chinese are real man" and similar ridiculous stuff but generally, throughout the whole movie almost every scene that isn't related to actual fighting literally screams "F**k the Japanese, F**k the white man, China uber alles!" But even that, I could accept at some level. However, what I can absolutely not accept is the falsification of historical truth we can see in the beginning of the movie. Chinese fighting on the western front in WW1? Are you serious? The Chinese did declare war against Germany, correct. But did they send any troops to any actual battlefield? No! No Chinese troops fought outside of Asia during WW1. Just as a short side note, I think the Chinese film makers mixed up WW1 and 2, given the fact that the supposedly German soldiers in the opening scene had the equipment of a Wehrmacht soldier in the late '30s and not that of a German soldier fighting in WW1. Just take a closer look at the helmets and uniforms they're wearing. But that's the historian inside of me speaking. Also the main protagonist claims two or three times that China is a victory power of WW1. That again, is an outright falsification of historical truth. As a historian I simply cannot accept such outrageous propagandistic behavior by the film makers. Legend of the fist is just way to much polemical propaganda and to few actual fighting.conclusion: A little above average Martial Arts, dramaturgically slightly below average even for a Martial Arts movie, to this point unseen degree of political propaganda and falsification of history...1 point out of ten.

There is only one reason to see this movie and that is Donnie Yen. It is just an amazing sight to see this master of martial arts in action. Andrew Lau however must be ashamed for trying to be so political and patriotic. Nothing wrong with nationalistic movies once in a while. But lately it has been overkill. And he is clearly over his head here since he barely makes sense of what actually is happening on the screen. Worse you won't even care apart from the obvious cruelties displayed in movies like this. It is such a shame that the focus seems to be on the plot that is hardly interesting. Luckily for Andrew Lau Donnie manages to save it all by himself but you can't but wonder what the movie would have been like if the plot was kept simple.