Fearless: Kung Fu spiced with Sadness
Posted by: Ian
Jet Li from
Fearless opening up a proverbial
can on some poor, unsuspecting soul.
So Tig and I decided that we needed to have a rental review in order to “fill out” the site, so to speak. One cannot survive on recent and upcoming movie reviews alone. Fearless just happened to show up in our mailbox from Netflix, so it gets the privilege of christening the last naked section.
Plot Outline: Huo Yuanjia (Jet Li), is the son of a martial arts (or “wushu” as it is called in the movie) master. However, due to the fact that he is cursed with asthma, his father refuses to allow him to learn the art of wushu. Despite his father’s wishes, Huo trains in secret and eventually becomes a wushu master. In accordance with his pledge never to lose a fight, which he made to his close friend as a child, he eventually becomes one of the strongest fighters in his area, but also becomes self-absorbed and conceited. After killing an opponent in an unplanned and personal match, his life is ruined by his opponent’s grieving son (exactly how I won’t say, it’d be a spoiler). The movie details his life from this destructive episode to his eventual epic fight for China's honor against four top warriors from four different countries. (Based on a true story)
Review: I was actually fairly impressed with this movie. The previews I remember seeing always left me thinking it was just going to be another dumb action flick. Granted the story line is a little bit cliché, granted the best parts of the movie are where Jet Li is kicking the ever living shit out of someone... the movie is still pretty good. The cinematography is, as to be expected, excellent. The director, Ronny Yu, does an excellent job capturing China as it existed during Huo’s time period (1869-1910). Or at least I imagine he does. It’s beautiful regardless.
The acting is passable. As a rule, acting is never that great in martial arts movies, and I can accept that fact. But Jet Li’s portrayal of Huo isn’t horrible. There are times, however, when I found myself thinking, “God, the acting in that scene was painful.” For example, Huo is supposed to be a fairly self-absorbed individual, but there are times when I felt like Li acted too self-absorbed. This happened countless times during the movie, and this overacting ended up feeling strained.
Otherwise the movie was enjoyable. There was a lot of violence, but what else would you expect from a martial arts flick? The unrated version (which is what Tig and I watched) had a lot of bones breaking and hearts being thrust through rib cages and such, but it wasn’t too gruesome. Of course, after the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which Tig forced me to watch, nothing really seems that gruesome in comparison.
All in all, it’s worth renting. The story is excellent even though it’s a tad cliché, the action is intense, and despite some of the acting flaws, overall the movie is entertaining and enjoyable.
-Ian
PS. Does anyone find it odd that this was supposed to be Jet Li's "final martial arts epic," and now he has two more epic-type martial arts movies coming out? Look at his IMDB listing. I count two that could fit the "martial arts epic" description that are either filming or in pre-production.
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