My introduction to the high brow martial arts movie came in the winter of 2001 when I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on the big screen at The Bookshelf Cinema in Guelph. It had people running on the tops of trees, flipping through the air in gravity-defying fashion and an epic story of love, revenge and mystical swords. I was familiar with Bruce Lee and the Ninja Turtles, but this was the movie that blew my mind about the possibilities of martial arts movies, their potential grandeur and mythology. May the movie gods forgive me, but I was young and naïve.
Now the average movie goer may be more familiar with the work of Yuen Woo Ping as a fight choreographer than his nearly four decades of collected works as a filmmaker. Yuen is the guy that helped Neo bounce off walls in The Matrix, assisted The Bride in her mission to Kill Bill, and made the characters of Crouching Tiger fly through the air with tremendous grace. He also has nearly 30 films under his belt, and his latest is True Legend, an epic martial arts film that features mesmerizing fight scenes and a story that is at times equal parts vintage Shakespeare and ludicrous chop-socky.
The thing about True Legend is that the film has those two modes; very different in tone, and immediately jarring when Yuen makes the switch, but the two sides of the film do end up flowing together in unexpected ways. On the one hand, the film is about revenge, betrayal, jealousy and loss, but as our hero Su (Vincent Zhao) traverses the cities and wilderness of 19th century China, he overcomes adversity through either self-delusion or the wisdom of the town drunk. Weirder still is that in watching True Legend, though the wild swings of story’s tone disorient you briefly, you end up just going with it. And better still, it all makes perfect sense to you in the end.
Zhao’s Su is first seen as a skilled and beloved general in the Qing dynasty. After successfully rescuing a captured prince (Jacky Heung), Su is offered a governorship in gratitude. No, that’s okay, he says, you should really give it to my foster brother, Yuan (Andy On). All I want to do is settle down with my wife, start a family and become a Wu Shu master, and then teach others. Now that I think about it, that’s pretty much how Maximus got rolling in Gladiator. Well, without the Wu Shu part. And like Russell Crowe’s muscle bound swordsman, Su is going to feel the sting of betrayal by a brother.
The dark story is that Yuan and his sister Ying (Zhou Xun), who is now Su’s wife, were taken in by Su’s father after he killed their birth father for learning the ways of the dark art called the Five Venom Fists technique. That kind of sounds like Star Wars now that I think about it. I guess the point is that Yuen is playing with some pretty broad archetypes. And despite Su’s belief that Yuan is now returning in peace, his father’s opinion turns out to be dead on, literally, about Yuan’s true intentions. In the process, Su himself is near-mortally injured and tossed into a rapidly-flowing river. Ying dives in after him in an attempted rescue and their little boy, Feng, is left to be taken away as his uncle’s pet nephew.
The story is pretty standard, but Yuen infuses the film with real zest and some beautifully choreographed fight sequences. Yuen shoots the fights with real flow, allowing the viewer to drink in the grace and elegance of the fisticuffs, which are only rarely accentuated with any kind of heavy CGI. What is interesting about True Legend is that it was originally shot for 3-D presentation in China, and although I have grown tired with 3-D infused Hollywood blockbusters (like so many others) seeing True Legend in its original third dimension is an experience I wouldn’t mind having.
The actors were also great, and not just for their kung fu (or wu shu as the case may be). I loved Zhao’s wide-eyed optimist turned downtrodden vengeance seeker because he was really able to sell both parts. On is cold as ice as Yuan, but there’s a madness underneath his steel that On underplays really well. I was also impressed Li Zo and Suen Hanwen, the young actors that played Su’s son Feng. Michelle Yoeh, who I like to classify as the Meryl Streep of martial arts movies, has a cameo, as does the dearly departed David Carradine in one his final movie roles.
In the midst of a disappointing blockbuster season at the movies, fans looking for something new, and exciting, and off the beaten path might appreciate the artistry and traditional-style epic quality of True Legend. The action is great, there’s some real emotion to the story, and the fight choreography makes the kung fu fighters in the average martial arts picture look like they’re wearing cement overshoes. It may not have pushed my hair back like that fist time I saw Crouching Tiger, but it’s refreshing like a cold drink on a summer’s day.
True Legend is now playing at theatres in Toronto and Vancouver.
