Brief Story Line
Set during the Sui dynasty era, Dao Ma (Wu Jing - Meg 2: The Trench, Wolf Warrior 2 etc) was a well known bounty hunter who himself was actually the second wanted man in the country. One day he was asked by his benefactor, the chief of Moji village Lao Mo (Tony Leung Ka Fai - Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants, The Lover etc) to escort the most wanted man Zhi Si Lang (Sun Yi Zhou - iPartment series, This is Not What I Expected etc) to Chang'an capital. Despite his reluctance, Dao Ma fulfilled the request and went there together with the child under his protection Xiao Qi, Lao Mo's daughter Ayuya (Opera performer Chen Li Jun) and her bodyguard Ani (Xiong Jin Yi - My Sassy Deskmate TV series etc).
During the trip, Dao Ma's group encountered another bounty hunter known as Jade Shu (Yu Shi - Creation of the Gods movies, To The Wonder TV series etc) who was bringing his prisoner Yan Zi Niang (Li Yun Xiao) to Chang'an and ended up going together. The journey gotten a lot more dangerous as in addition to many people wanting to capture Si Lang, there was also a person from Dao Ma's past named Di Ting (Nicholas Tse - Raging Fire, Stool Pigeons etc) who was trying to kill him. To make things more complicated, Ayuya's former fiance and new Khan, He Yixuan (Ci Sha - The Shadow's Edge, The Longest Promise TV series etc) also tried to capture the group along with his army.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Oh my God! It has been so long since I was so entertained seeing a wuxia film in the cinema. During my childhood and teenage years, we were never lacking of such movies plus the various wuxia series that I got the chance to watch back then. However in the last two decades there were not many of them and very rarely of high quality. But this latest one was really amazing in term of the fight scenes. Every one of those fights were so awesomely done, breath taking and very satisfying. I could not count how many times my wife and I were so caught up, including that one time we literally felt overwhelmed after the scene finished (I was talking about that long major fight that finished with the sand storm).
It was really no surprise why the action sequence were so wonderful cause this movie was directed by the legendary Yuen Woo Ping. He was director of some famous martial arts films such as Drunken Master (with Jackie Chan), Iron Monkey (with Donnie Yen), Tai Chi Master (with Jet Li) and many more. But he was well known globally after he was appointed as fight choreographer for films like Kill Bill I & II, The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and a lot others. Btw, he made a brief cameo during the closing credits together with two other big names, so don't miss them cause their identities were shown very briefly.
Obviously the casting was truly amazing with different generation of martial art actors/actresses. Wu Jing and Nicholas Tse were so perfect in their roles with their absolutely brilliant fight scenes. The biggest part that made this movie so irresistable was the special appearance of none other than Jet Li himself. Even during those few minutes, we were in awe that he could still perform those moves (my wife got teary eyed just from watching him here). Other than the cast I said above, there were also Max Zhang (Ip Man 4: The Finale, The Grandmaster etc) as Two Headed Snake, Liu Yaowen (A Little Romance etc) as Pei Xingyan and many more including cameo of Kara Wai (At the End of Daybreak, Rigor Mortis etc) as Ani's auntie, Yu Rongguang (Ride On, Red Sorghum TV series etc) and several others.
Now the film itself had a duration of 126 minutes including closing credits where mostly were filled with the fight scenes. It was adapted from manhua titled Biao Ren written and illustrated by Xu Xianzhe that was very well received in China and was also adapted into animated series. Like a lot of adaptations from serialized animation/comics, it did feel that the time was not enough to properly introduced the characters and story felt a bit rushed. This was the aspect that more critical viewers were complaining, though for me and my wife, it was not such a big deal and still tolerable for us. In fact there were times where we could still laughed (particularly the behavior of Zhi Silang which my wife adored) and a bit emotional. It also has a satisfying ending for us, although it did open room for sequel as the story has not been fully completed.
This movie was released during the Chinese New Year holidays in China along with 5 others (another one is going to be shown next week in Indonesia). Seemed like the film was pretty successful though it was not the biggest one in term of Box Office performance. Overall this was a really entertaining martial arts movie for me and my wife with so many extraordinary action sequence like the beautiful sword fights, the use of bow and arrows, horse riding fights and so on. Despite the rushed story telling, we could still understand the general plot and the characters story which we still appreciate. So if you want to see the full action wuxia martial arts movie with plenty of stunning & breath taking fight scenes, then you are going to be entertained by this like me and my wife. It is also a nice reminiscence of seeing Jet Li even if it is not for the entire film. Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
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