Fist of Legend

I'm sure some people have made the connection already but I think I'd just point it out now and say that Fist of Legend is pretty much a fictitious sequel to the turn of events that occur in Fearless, the story about Huo Yuanjia and how his death turned up as a explosive dilemma in Chinese culture during that time and this movie runs about the same era... if not the SAME story.Where I'm getting at is that the story of Fist of Legend is that a martial arts student, Chen Zen, of the Jingwu Federation finds out their master has been killed in a comptetition... Jingwu was founded by Huo Yuanjia himself and when Chen Zen fights the Japanese man who fought supposedly fought Chen's master, he even says he'll fight the Sensei with the Huo fist, his master's fist. HUO YUANJIA's style.There are some strange connections that lead up by connecting the two movies but if you make the distinctions clear enough to understand, they do match up, which was pretty neat. Other evidence that follows up that Fist of Legend is a presumable sequel is when Chen Zen goes to pay respects to his dead master, there at the temple is the picture of Huo Yuanjia. Seriously.Alright aside from tid-bitting self-produced facts and such, Fist of Legend is a movie that's timeless to Jet-Li's other performances. I only wish I could find an english subtitled version of this movie or something because the dubbing does NOT serve it justice! I won't knock its rating down just for dubbing, that'd be a shame to do because everything else about the movie is fantastic. Action sequencing is profoundly neat, that mediocre type of filming chinese movies seem to use for a broad majority of their films is actually quite good in this one, not quality, but by execution and performances really get you in to know each character and who they stand as.I can't think of a reason why anyone wouldn't get this movie if they're a big kung fu movie buff, action movie lover or Jet-Li fanatic, or someone who just wants some unique exposure to these realms. Fist of Legend is definitely a reamarkable piece of work and entertainment.

I review this as a 'Kung-Fu movie' movie fan - that's what they were called when I was a kid - & a Bruce Lee fan. I am not enamoured with all Hong Kong martial arts flics.Fist of Legend is a pale comparison of the original Fist of Fury. Fist of Fury was - at the time - unique & to Australian audiences came from virtually nowhere. In Australia we had had a marvellous season of Kung Fu (the TV series with David Carridine) & as kids at school it was all we could talk about - those incredible & unusual kung-fu fights scenes. Little did we know what was about to be unleashed on the big screen. I recall watching TV one night when an ad came on for Fist of Fury, the voice over: “THIS is the REAL King Fu” and the image of Bruce Lee with a flying kick etc. I sat there gob-smacked and at 12 years old I simply had to go to see this movie much to my mother’s chagrin. It is the greatest ever Kung Fu movie – nothing since has been its match - & I’m sure to have plenty of detractors on this. Bruce Lee was elegant, fluid, fast & unstoppable. Anyone could see the craft, the inimitable skill-level and most of all Bruce Lee’s presence. All audiences knew that they were safe to back Bruce Lee – he was indefatigable & undefeatable. Fist of Legend lacks this magic & Jet Li has no such ‘presence’. I grant you that the fight scenes are frenetic but so compactly scripted, so rigid & so tightly edited that what the audience engage in is a mash of scenes more expressing the skill of the technical crew & less so of the prowess of the protagonist. Jet Li is more the dancer than the fighter. The camera is often slowed down to speed up his reactions, in fact if you placed as many edits & ‘thwack’ sound effects in Swan Lake you’d have a similar effect. I like Jet Li movies – well – some of them. And in fact I pick this movie as one of his best. But just remember, it’s a remake of Fist of Fury & frankly lacks the imagination & magic of the original. 3 stars (original 5).

The fact that this movie came. I haven't seen this since I was at least 13. Fell in love with it and decided to purchase. Glad I did

Fist of Legend, the movie, is a solid 4.5 star event. Jet Li is fast, fast, fast. The fights are not too repetitive and the story isn't annoyingly bad. I probably have a soft spot for this movie, but I really can't think of too many pure martial arts flicks in my library that are better (maybe Drunken Master). But FULL DISCLOSURE I don't practice martial arts and probably could not tell you the first thing about it. All I know is that this is entertaining and head-and-shoulders above a good deal of Li's later, blockbuster-type stuff.Now the real review and the reason for giving the Blu-ray 3 stars overall. Most of the movie looks great, and certainly better than the VHS copy I have been working with since high-school, but that's just what you would expect. The last third of the movie, though, looks pretty bad. There is a light, black line running vertically along the right side of the image in about 5 scenes. During the last fight when Chen ends up in the small courtyard there are artifacts all over the image - it looked like rain at first - but it's just a light dusting of "snow" on the image for most of that scene. And, finally, the subtitles and audio are a major step down from my old copy. I don't speak Cantonese or Mandarin, so I'm not evaluating faithfulness to the spoken language. My beef is with the subtitles being out of sync with the audio and characters having multiple voice actors (it seems!). Also, referring to Japanese swords as "Sabers" seems weird, especially when the person talking is Japanese.At the end of the day you should be watching this for the martial arts, which are at least worth 4 stars, but when you buy a Blu-ray it seems reasonable to have certain expectations regarding the video and audio. Since those expectations weren't fully met, I give the Blu-ray 3 stars overall. If there were half-star ratings I would give Fist of Legend 3.5 stars.

Love the father, son dynamic here. The action is pretty damn good, any martial arts fan will appreciate it.

Ok.

Some may balk at the fact that this movie is a remake of the Bruce Lee classic, "Chinese Connection" (originally entitled "Fists of Fury"--the current "Fists of Fury" was originally entitled "Big Boss Man"--don't ask me why they created this confusion), this is perhaps one of the best martial arts movies of all time, and certainly one of Jet Li's best offerings.It would be nothing less than gross negligence for a self-respecting martial arts fan to go without OWNING this movie.

Ma petite lubie du moment, c'est de remplacer petit à petit les films fétiches de ma DVD-thèque (beaucoup de films HK en fait) par du Blu-Ray quand c'est possible.Mais parfois, je me demande si cette lubie vaut le coup de passer pour un gros pigeon car bon, je sais que je suis pas trop difficile au niveau de la technique, je sais aussi que les personnes bossant sur ces disques font du mieux qu'ils peuvent avec les moyens (sources, budget, etc.) qu'on leur met à disposition... Mais je commence à en avoir un peu marre de ces upscales de masters DVD, aussi bons étaient-ils pour leur époque.Je pourrais avaler la pilule plus facilement s'il y avait encore une plus-value par rapport au DVD, mais non : c'est les mêmes suppléments, on a toujours la petite coupe à la fin de la scène de combat entre Chen Zhen et Ting-En (pas bien grave), pas de scènes coupées du cut Taïwanais en bonus... D'ailleurs, on a même un truc retiré par rapport au DVD : le montage US a complètement sauté, ce qui serait grave si on en avait quelque chose à cirer d'un point de vue bien franchouillard.Et ça m'embête un peu d'avoir autant pesté durant ce commentaire, car c'est Fist of Legend quoi ! Un des quelques films du club très restreint du "parfait film d'art martial", qui aurait mérité un bien meilleur traitement...

Un film sur l'affrontement historique entre le Japon qui occupe la Mandchourie et la Chine. Affrontement entre écoles d'arts martiaux interposées. D'un côté il y a Jet Li, de l'école chinoise, dont le maitre vient de mourir et qui revient (il étudie au Japon) pour l'honorer et aussi comprendre ce qui s'est passé.Le film est le remake d'un des films de Bruce Lee, La Fureur De Vaincre (1972, de Wei Lo). Nous y gagnons au change, car Jet Li est meilleur acteur (est un acteur devrions nous dire, car Bruce Lee ne savait pas jouer la comédie).Le film est cousu de fil blanc, mais fonctionne parfaitement. Les combats sont spectaculaires, variés et heureusement utilisent assez peu les câbles et ne sont donc pas ridicules. Le canevas de vengeance est sympathique. Et les méchants sont très bien et assez jubilatoires: Billy Chow et Jackson Lou. Et le scénario gère plutôt bien les différents personnages de seconds rôles qui gravitent autour de Jet Li: que ce soit dans son école chinoise, que ce soit coté japonais que ce soit avec sa fiancée (le racisme des deux sociétés, Chinoise et Japonaise est bien montré), que ce soit avec l'oncle de la fiancée.Nous pouvons noter que le scénario et donc le film contient beaucoup de scènes avec les femmes, que ce soit l'amoureuse prostituée, l'amoureuse japonaise de Jet Li. L'honneur de l'école passe avant la relation amoureuse, mais ces personnages ne sont pas que des éléments fonctionnels.Laissons de coté la direction d'acteur pachydermique et concentrons-nous sur le coté jubilatoire de sa progression dramatique déjà vue des milliers de fois, mais plutôt addictive avec des combats qui rabattent le caquet promptement au vilain méchant à chaque fois.