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Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
Topic Started: Oct 29 2009, 11:22 PM (12,282 Views)
DooK
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Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (Jingwu fengyun – Chen Zhen)

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Dir: Andrew Lau. Hong Kong/China. 2010. 105mins

Chen Zhen lives to fight again in Andrew Lau’s first foray into big-budget martial arts cinema. Reprising one of Bruce Lee’s most famous roles is never easy, but Donnie Yen has the stepping stone of Jet Li’s earlier reincarnation of kung-fu fighter Chen Zhen in Fist of Legend (1994) to bounce off, and he and Lau launch into the task with a great deal of verve.

If the result is more solid and workmanlike than ravishingly poetic, that’s probably deliberate: period martial arts epics have retreated, for good market reasons, from the crossover high water mark set by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers, and are focusing these days (as Red Cliff demonstrated) on cleaning up in Asia, with sales elsewhere being seen as the icing on the cake.

The fact that US distribution rights to Legend of the Fist have been picked up not by a big studio distributor but by niche operator Well Go, is telling in this respect. Ip Man, Well Go’s current Donnie Yen title, is being released first on DVD and BluRay, with a theatrical release being promised at some later date; and Legend of the Fist is likely to follow a similar trajectory. However, the film’s nationalist agenda, as well as its star cast and tasty period setting, should help to make it big in China, and results in Southeast Asia should be peppy.

Martial arts warrior Chen Zhen is an entirely cinematic construct, created by writer Ni Kuang for the Bruce Lee vehicle Fist of Fury. Originally set in the twilight years of the Qing dynasty (which ended in 1912), the action has been moved forward here to the 1920s in order to set the standoff between Chinese and Japanese martial arts schools in Shanghai in a context of rising Japanese militarism and Chinese nationalist resistance.

The four scriptwriters begin by dusting off the little-known historical episode of thousands of Chinese workers being forcibly sent off to fight alongside French and British forces in the First World War. Chen Zhen (Yen) is one of them, and it’s his experiences on the French killing fields that mould his Chinese nationalist pride.

Nothing else in the film quite matches the exhilaration of the pre-title sequence, in which Chen Zhen and his companions attack a German position in a war-ravaged French town. After the war, going under the name of Ku, Chen Zhen befriends Liu Yutian (Wong), the good-hearted gangland owner of decadent Shanghai nightclub Casablanca, where sultry torch singer Kiki (Shu Qi) – who is not quite what she seems – performs nightly.

But Chen is secretly a member of an underground group dedicated to resisting Japanese expansionism in Shanghai, and he adopts the identity of a Masked Warrior – borrowed from a cheesy Hollywood film playing at a downtown cinema – to foil Japanese designs in a series of tasty fights (all choreographed by Yen himself).

Lush photography, a surging orchestral score and rich period detail creates a nicely tenebrous atmosphere of a tension-ridden city waiting uneasily for the match that lights the touchpaper. Western characters – like a bigoted police chief – are mere ciphers – but leads Yen (poised and elegant with his Gallicised look and manners) and Shu Qi fill out their roles, abetted ably by supporting players like Chen Yen’s main antagonist, Japanese colonel Chikariashi (Ryuichi).

Production companies: Media Asia Films, Enlight Pictures, Shanghai Film Media Asia present a Basic Pictures production
International sales: Media Asia Distribution, www.mediaasia.com
Producers: Gordon Chan, Andrew Lau
Executive producers: John Chong, Zhang Zhao, Zhang Guoli
Screenplay: Cheng Chi Sing, Gordon Chan, Lui Koon Nam, Frankie Tam
Cinematography: Andrew Lau, Ng Man Ching
Production design: Eric Lam
Editor: Azrael Chung
Music: Chan Kwong Wing
Main cast: Donnie Yen, Shu Qi, Anthony Wong, Huang Bo, Kohata Ryuichi

http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/latest-...5017694.article
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DooK
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BTW footage of Donnie choreographing the action scenes.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoMp2TsgHwM[/YOUTUBE]
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Maz
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Making of / BTS

[YOUTUBE]http://you.video.sina.com.cn/api/sinawebApi/outplayrefer.php/vid=37800935_28/s.swf[/YOUTUBE]
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Sagacious Koreo
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Man, the way Donnie jumped through the window of the car was smooth.
The Ever-Growing Blu Collection
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"If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?" -Steven Wright
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Maz
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http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/p/2010-09-07/22353079459.shtml
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JoshuaPettigrew
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Maz
Sep 7 2010, 11:00 AM

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http://www.joshuapettigrew.com
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Maz
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http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/p/2010-09-10/02153082426.shtml
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tinlunlau
Lorenzo von Matterhorn
saw it last night. i find it pretty disappointing.
sure, the set and costume designs looked nice but there wasn't enough action. but the action scenes were great whenever they showed up. story kinda goes flat in the midway portion of the movie. it felt like watching michael bay's pearl harbor. and just so you know, yusuaki kurata only appears briefly in a flashback sequence. shaun yu barely had any screen time.

and i want shu qi's songs in the movie. something about her songs from the movie is a huge turn-on for me! guess it was all the "whoo-hoo"..
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Maz
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http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/p/2010-09-13/00433084821.shtml
http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/2010-09-13/00263084818.shtml
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DooK
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Yasuaki Kurata.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjaOdZ75-JA[/YOUTUBE]

Interview with Andrew Lau.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2ZSHhIseYI[/YOUTUBE]

TV Spot 1.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKJq2UkKBdI[/YOUTUBE]

TV Spot 2.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC7n6i35-YU[/YOUTUBE]

TV Spot 3.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFbEI1Ar1u0[/YOUTUBE]
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Maz
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http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/2010-09-16/22193090123.shtml
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Proutcast
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I refuse to believe tinlunlau when he says this flick was meh! I hope he's wrong! :(
My Movie Collection
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tinlunlau
Lorenzo von Matterhorn
Proutcast
Sep 16 2010, 10:35 AM
I refuse to believe tinlunlau when he says this flick was meh! I hope he's wrong!  :(

Dude, I paid 30 bucks to see this movie. Would you think I'd lie about that?
Although I have to admit, Huang Bo was great comedic relief. The scene where he argues with the white guy was priceless.
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DooK
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The movie soundtrack is up for pre-order. Composed by Chan Kwong-Wing (Infernal Affairs trilogy, SPL, Flash Point, Bodyguards and Assassins).

http://www.yesasia.com/global/legend-of-th...-0-en/info.html
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Sjekster
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Proutcast
Sep 16 2010, 05:35 PM
I refuse to believe tinlunlau when he says this flick was meh! I hope he's wrong! :(

Well, pretty much every review I read is bad, so I'm reeeeeeaaally lowering my expectations now.
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