Legend of the Wolf (1997)
Wolf is a war veteran who recounts the tale of his legendary youth to a young upstart killer. Flashback to a post-World War 2 time when the young Wolf is wandering the Chinese countryside in search of his missing memories. He only knows to meet someone at an abandoned temple. He ends up hooking up with a local villager, who intends to guide the Wolf to his destination. On the way, they find Wai-Yee, who’s been waiting for Wolf for quite some time. However, Wolf still can’t remember anything, until the bad guys come to find him, and they bear the terrible secret of the Wolf's past.
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"New Big Boss" / "Legend Of The Wolf" is certainly an ambitious film. With its flashbacks-within-flashbacks, occasionally philosophical dialogue, a passionate love scene, a constant "poetic" music score, etc., it's obvious that Donnie Yen was trying to make something more than a simple martial-arts film. Unfortunately, he bit off more than he could chew, and the result is awful. You know something is wrong when a movie is 3/4 of the way over and you still haven't got a clue what's going on! I could easily put up with all this arty crap if there was at least some good action. But most of the fight scenes in this movie are laughably excessive (Yen runs through entire armies of villains like the Tazmanian Devil, punching people left and right), and even those that could potentially be good (like one where the opponent has chains wrapped around his right arm, or the final showdown) are spoiled by the cartoon-like, hokey sound effects. To say that this is "the greatest martial-arts movie of all time" is downright preposterous.
This movie is terrible. Not the kind of terrible that's charming and funny.. its the kind of terrible in where you throw your copy of the DVD away. The story is incomprehensible, and seems as though it were 2 movies spliced together. The emotional soul searching that our hero goes on, takes up 2/3s of the movie and is painfully uninteresting to watch.And the fight scenes. I dont know what the other people on here are thinking (they liked this?)but when you have a scene of 20+ people fighting.. you dont zoom in!! In all of the fights, they use close ups, and shake the camera to create drama? All you see is fists flying past the lens, and terrible sound effects to go along with it.I give this movie a 1/10 and declare it UNWATCHABLE.
When I finally got the chance to see this movie, it lived up to and surpassed most of my expectations. Donnie Yen is both excellent as an actor and a director. Legend of the Wolf is definitely one of the best kung-fu flicks since Fist of Legend or Iron Monkey. It effectively recaptures a genre that has not been effectively done since the late 80's and early 90's.The movie contains at least 5 or 6 amazing fight scenes that complement the slightly confusing, yet thoughtful story, well. The speed of the fight scenes is lightening quick and all of the action is intense, the only downfall being that a little editing was necessary for some of the earlier fights. However, this film overcomes all of its flaws and provides a thrilling experience that should please all martial-arts fans. final score 10/10
Okay, let's start with what's WRONG with this movie: an extraneous framing story, occasionally over-done drama, a "dah dah DAAAAH" soundtrack that won't quite, lack of a major, logically progressing conflict, (just some junk about some bandits) sometimes silly undercranking and the fact that it's basically a "Blade" wannabe. With that said, I'll say this movie is INTENSE! Good scenery and dramatics, (if occasionally overwrought) and ultra-brutal, bloody "YAAAAAAAAH!" type fight scenes as in The Blade. Sure, the undercranking and "flailing limbs in front of faces" shots get a little ridiculous, but it's all so crazy I couldn't help but love it. It's not up there with the better period flicks of '90-'94, but it beats the hell out of a certain other amnesia-themed period movie earlier this year. And you've gotta love a movie that feels like it was only about 45 minutes long.