Fearless is billed as Jet Li's "final" martial arts masterpiece. It is true life story of Huo Yuan-jia, a turn of the century martial arts guru of the Jin wu Sports Federation.
The story is a familiar one in this genre. As a child and young man, his careless lifestyle and desire to be number one bring him the ultimate personal tragedy. He rises from the ashes of his life and brings honor to himself and China. Since he was already nearly the best fighter before his fall having learned from is father, there is no martial arts mentor. His epiphany occurs in a beautifully filmed country village, where he is nurtured body and spirit by a blind woman.
He returns home to rebuild his family honor and ultimately represents his school and country in an international competition. The fight scene are quite good. There are some gravity defying scenes, but keeping these to a minimum helped keep this movie from being too fantastic or corny.
It's hard not to think of Jackie Chan when I think of Jet Li. It seems a natural comparison since they are both so big in the Kung fu genre. Jackie Chan has such a natural apptitude for comedy while Jet Li is always so much more serious. They are both awesome performers of their martial art. I wish they would have made a couple movies together along the way.
I will rate Fearless 4/5 acorns, and no clives.
2 comments:
Tee-hee.
We (my hubby and I) see all the Jet Li movies. My son's middle name is Li...if that tells you anything (other than he is half Chinese). Thank you for the review!
:)
And...thank you for commenting on my blog and my socks.
I love Jet Li. I do think Jackie Chan is very funny, but don't classify him as one of my "men", as I do Jet Li. "Romeo Must Die" is a movie I will watch any time I catch it on tv, channel surfing.
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