Jet Li's Fearless

I havent seen a ton of Jet Li movies, but the few that I have, I've liked. I think hes pretty good in all of the fighting scenes I've watched, and has a general "coolness" about him. So I decided I'd get Fearless sent to me to see his last martial arts epic. Last until when? Who knows. Maybe he will stick to his guns and never do another, but we will see.

His character in the movie is named Huo Yuanjia, and he is a master of Wushu fighting. The movie opens with him fighting in a tournament, and he easily takes on three people in a row. His next opponent is the best fighter from Japan, and as they are about to come to blows, the movie cuts back 30 years so we see how he got there.

The movie recaps his childhood and why his father doesnt want him to be involved in Wushu fighting. It flashes forward and his father has died, and Huo wants to keep the family namesake alive in the fighting. He has become one of the best and takes on all comers.

His best friend from childhood sees that a lot of the friends and students around Huo, might not have the purest of intentions or motivations for their relationships and he tries to warn him to watch out for himself, or something bad will happen..... Of course something bad happens.

The story gets juicy here, even though its not the most original. It goes from having Huo as the cocky, arrogant, almost bad guy of the movie, to the sympathetic good guy with one turn of events.

He goes out to find himself and leaves the city because of events that have transpired, and he finds redemption for himself before returning years later, and seeing that Westerners have changed his city upon arrival.

The Chinese people are taken advantage of, and are looked at as a weak breed of human being. Huo realizes the problem, and his solution is to get back into fighting, to unite the Chinese people and show everybody that they will not tolerate the abuse. Thus leading to the tournament, and back into present day.

I liked the movie, and thought the fight sequences were great. I am always a fan of a fight that is well choreographed, and the movie actually lets you witness how good it is. Too many american action movies go for the frenetically paced fight scenes where the camera is way too close to the action, and bouncing around so maybe you will see a fist or something recognizable once in a while. Not this movie, you can see everything and it is well shot, and well edited.

All of the locations are visually impressive as well. What I've noticed about movie involving asian culture and stories, is that they all capture how beautiful the landscapes of the countries are, and this is no different. Some of the scenery was very nice. It made the whole feel of the movie calm and relaxing when you see where all the violent fights are taking place.

The director of the movie was Ronny Yu, which surprised me immensely. I had never seen anything he was a part of from China before, and all I've known him from is Bride of Chucky and Freddy vs. Jason, so this was a welcome change for me to see a serious movie he directed as opposed to the Horror Comedies hes done in the past (which I liked both a lot). It was a good change too.

The acting was as good as I could tell, because its all in Chinese and I read subtitles. So for all I actually know, the acting was horrible ya know? Bottom line, I had no complaints about any of the actors, and the blind girl he winds up being friends with later in the movie was appealing to my eyes, which is some sweet irony right there.

I liked the storys climax at the end of the movie, and it really made me get behind Jet Li at the turning point of the movie. The whole western invasion too made me want the Chinese people to come out triumphant, and the ending was a little surprising for me with what happened.

Anyways, I dont want to give away anything huge, but it was a good ending. Then when the credits rolled, I found out that this was based off of real life events. I had no idea. That makes it all the more interesting for me.

Bottom line, it was entertaining, the fights were really good, and it was nice to look at. If you dont like subtitles, dont worry too much, the story is easy enough to follow and they are not a pain in the ass. Plus, when people are speaking English, they are subtitled in English too which I thought was funny.

I would recommend it to anybody who likes martial arts movies. So I guess I'll give it 4 out of 5 assholes on the overall entertainment value for me personally.