ACF 147: "Fist of Legend" DVD out tomorrow!!!

Fist of Legend / Jing wu ying xiong
Directed by Gordon Chan
Action Choreography by Yuen Wo- ping
Hong Kong, 1994, 103 minutes

For those of you in a hurry, here's a quick two-liner with all you need to know:

The classic and fantastic Hong Kong martial arts film Fist of Legend will be available tomorrow (09.09.08) in a spectacular 2-disc DVD from Dragon Dynasty. Buy it!

If you have more time, read on.

The film is a remake of Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury (1972). Because of the vagaries of re-titling in the U.S., that film was called The Chinese Connection here. Further complicating matters, his The Big Boss (1971) was called Fists of Fury in the U.S.!!!

Remaking such a classic was somewhat risky, to say the least. Faced with such Hollywood fare as Jurassic Park (1993), Fist of Legend didn't do all that well at the Hong Kong box office initially. But time has proved it to be a classic in its own right.

The film is set in the 1930s, when Japan was beginning to expand its influence and control in China. Jet Li stars as Chen Zhen, a Chinese studying in Japan, who returns to Shanghai when he learns that his martial arts teacher, Master Hou. has died in a challenge match with a member of the Hong Kong branch of the Japanese Black Dragon Clan. Once there he figures out that his master was not defeated in the match, but had been poisoned.

Chen Zhen (left) and Hou Ting-An (right) get air-born

Chin Siu-Ho plays Hou Ting-An, the son of the dead master and the new head of the school. He's a bit of a wastrel and is jealous of Chen's popularity amongst many of the students, but his essential good nature eventually comes to the fore. Chin co-starred with Jet in 1993s Tai-Chi Master, a.k.a. Twin Warriors. (See ACF 137 for my review of the Dragon Dynasty DVD release of that film.)

Kurata Yasuaki is Fuimo Funakoshi, a decent and admirable Japanese martial arts master. The actor was also instrumental in getting other Japanese actors for the film, as he did for Heroes of the East, another Dragon Dynasty DVD which I reviewed in ACF 138.

The main cast is rounded out by Billy Chow as General Fujita, a fanatical Japanese militarist who stokes the fires of anti-Chinese sentiment. He's also referred to as "the so-called killing machine." The climax of the final showdown pits Jet Li's character using a belt against Chow's General, who has grabbed a sword.

The fighting sequences are fast and furious, and there are a hell of a lot of them. All the action sequences were choreographed and directed by the legendary Yuen Wo-Ping. Gordon Chan, the film's director of record, handled the dramatic scenes and has done a very fine job with them, providing viewers with a richer than normal story for such Hong Kong fare.

It's been awhile since I've watched Bruce Lee's original, but I seem to recall it was pretty much unremitting in its depiction of all Japanese as vile, dastardly and underhanded. Fist of Legend is a bit more even-handed, not ony with Kurata's Funakoshi, but also with two other characters. Shinobu Nakayama, as Mitsuko Yamada, loves Chen Zhen, even to the point of perjuring herself to save him after he's been set-up for a murder he didn't commit. The Japanese ambassador, played by Toshimichi Takahashi, is also a sympathetic figure who deplores the General's tactics and behavior.

Hou Ting-An (Chin Siu-Ho) and Chen Zhen (Jet Li)

As always, the special features are outstanding. A feature-length audio commentary by Dragon Dynasty's "go-to guy" Bey Logan is available on disc 1. The second disk includes three separate interviews: director Gordon Chan, actor and co-star Chin Siu-Ho, and legendary Japanese martial artist, stuntman, and actor Kurata Yasuaki.

There's also a screen fighting seminar at Kurata's action school and a featurette with director Brett Ratner and film critic Elvis Mitchell. This duo did similar duty on Dragon Dynasty's DVD release of Tai Chi Master, and their comments again are quite interesting. (Mitchell, who wrote movie reviews for The New York Times, currently has a weekly podcast called The Treatment, interviews of people in the arts, primarily film. It's available in iTunes.)

Rounding out the extras are five deleted scenes and two trailers.

Fist of Legend gets a four out of four star rating (highest recommendation), both as a film and as a double-disc DVD release. See it, you must (as Yoda would say), but own it you definitely should.

Finally highest praise is due to all those at Genius Products, The Weinstein Company, and Dragon Dynasty who have once again presented us Asian film fans with a magnificent DVD release. More and more it seems like these people can do no wrong.

Read Grady Hendrix's Kaiju Shakedown entry about the Fist of Legend release and other Dragon Dynasty news.