Rating:  

Jet Li’s Fearless is a historical epic without the epic, based on a true story of which little is actually used, and is, supposedly, Jet Li’s last martial arts film (so just what does he call The Forbidden Kingdom?).

The movie tells the life story of Huo Yuanjia, a Chinese cultural hero. At the turn of the century Yuanjia is a little boy, the son of a wushu (martial arts) master. He desperately wants to learn wushu, but his father insists he do boring things instead, like learning to read and write. Luckily Yuanjia’s best friend, Jinsun, is a brainy kid who can forge Yuanjia’s lessons. But Yuanjia is disturbed when he sees his father hold back a killing blow in a match, resulting in his losing the fight. When Yuanjia’s father dies, he is finally free to practice wushu. He swears he will never lose a match to anyone.

The film jumps ahead several years; Yuanjia is now an adult, a widower with a spoiled daughter. He lives with his mother and, true to his childhood vow, is a famous local marital artist who has never lost a match. But his success has made him arrogant and unlikeable. He is heavily in debt due to his frequent lavish victory celebrations and is generally disliked for his rude manners. At a perceived slight from rival wushu master Chin, Yuanjia crashes Chin’s birthday party and, in the ensuing battle, kills him. In retaliation Chin’s nephew murders Yuanjia’s mother and daughter. Distraught, Yuanjia flees his home town. He travels aimlessly, eventually ending up in a remote valley where he is nursed back to the health by kindly villagers. Under their care Yuanjia slowly lets go of his anger and learns to live in peace.

After some years he returns to his hometown to visit the graves of his family. He finds that much has changed in his absence; many Western foreigners have arrived in China and have exploited Chinese disunity to take control of much of the government and economy. Many of the people have been educed to working as servants for these foreigners, who are intent on reforming the ‘barbaric’ customs of the Chinese. Yuanjia is appalled by the brokenness of his people. He forms a plan to instill some pride in China’s young people by founding a sports organization to teach wushu (by borrowing money from his old friend Jinsun). His organization is a huge success. Eventually the Westerners begin to take notice, and invite Yuanjia to Shanghai to take part in a series of competitions against different kinds of fighters (boxers, wrestlers, fencers etc.). Yuanjia becomes a symbol of national pride when he defeats them all. The final competition involves Yuanjia fighting four opponents back-to-back, ending with the formidable Japanese martial artist/swordsman Tanaka. In the process of fighting Tanaka, Yuanjia shows that he has learned the true secret of wushu’s purpose and why his father declined to kill his opponent all those years ago.

In an interview on the DVD, Jet Li says that his purpose in making Fearless was to show the world that there is more to martial arts than simply fighting. I’m sure most Westerners realize that wushu has a spiritual and philosophical heart, but I’m not sure how many will learn the lesson Li wants to teach, especially when a good chunk of the movie is devoted to awesome fighting action.

The action itself is excellent, but it doesn’t really offer anything new. Li is as skilled as ever, and his opponents are talented as well, particularly Shido Nakamura as Tanaka. Fearless is wirework-free, and while it’s guilty of the quick cuts that have plagued martial arts films over recent years, it has fewer edits than most.

Sets and costumes are as lavish as we’ve come to expect from Chinese historical dramas, and 1900’s Shanghai is brought to life in all its diverse, grimy glory.

While Yuanjia’s story is true, interesting and inspirational, the movie doesn’t use its dramatic impact to its fullest potential. It feels like the dramatic scenes were cut down in favor of the action, despite Li’s intentions. Or perhaps it was only to keep the running time short, and thus make the movie more marketable? The film is only 90 minutes, hardly long enough for an in-depth exploration of Yuanjia’s life and motivations. Edits cover years at a time; in the space of a single cut Yuanjia goes from bratty kid to bratty adult, is married, fathers a daughter and is widowed. Another cut covers years of his life in the rural village, and another flashes past the growth of his sports organization. In the end, we don’t really know that much about Yuanjia, so it’s hard to feel much when the film moves to its tragic end.

The DVD features few extras; there are trailers, a deleted scene that doesn’t reveal much and interviews with Li, director Ronny Yu and other cast and crew members.

Final verdict: If I’d never seen another Jet Li movie, I might be impressed. But Li has done better and Yu has done better. If they’d been able to escape bowing to popular desires (by putting in tons of fights), then Li might have been able to tell the story and make the point he wanted to. Unfortunately, most filmmakers can’t do exactly what they want , and these guys are no exception.

Details

Publisher: Universal Studios
Director: Ronny Yu
Stars: 3
Running Time: 104 minutes
MPAA Rating: N/R
MSRP: $19.98
Release Date: 12/19/2006
Buy:

http://www.amazon.com/Jet-Lis-Fearless-Unrated-Widescreen/dp/B000K2UW06/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1215480827&sr=8-2