In spite of the Andrew Lau-Gordon Chan-Donnie Yen triangle and a stellar cast to boot, Legend of the…… Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen is a formulaic action flick with heavy-handed nationalistic sentiment. The patriotic overtone is very popular among the audience in Hong Kong and mainland China in recently year. One can trace the history back to Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury and Jet Li’s Fist of Legend, with the two legendary martial artists in the same role that Donnie now reprises (in between, Yen played the role in a TV series). The combination of nationalism and martial arts in movie reached its height in Ip Man, a critical and commercial success. The Legend is a bit of a let down. Box office grosser The Legend will no doubt be, but as an action film on an epic scale, it is rather disappointing. The story is set more than a decade after the previous Chen Zhen installments by Bruce Lee and Jet Li. Chen turns up in Shanghai and infiltrated the influential circle of a club owner (played by the always reliable Anthony Wong) and uses it as his cover to take on the Japanese. The plot thicken, with a parade of characters come and go, but without much clarity. Even the beauty of Shu Qi and her competent performance as the hostess-singer cannot save the day. All would have been forgiven if only the action sequence live up to the standard of Yan’s best work. The opening sequence with gravity-defying stunt (most likely partly shot with a Yan bodydouble) was about the most impressive, but it was downhill from there, with the rest of the fighting done without the crispness of Yan’s past opus (I miss his classic fight with Jet Li in Once Upon a Time in China). The much anticipated final battle between Yan and the Japanese villain was an anti-climax when filmed with so much close up. It is like shooting a dance sequence from the waist up. There is an abundance of movie references, from Yen as the Masked Avenger ala Bruce Lee in Green Hornet. He hovers over the city like the Batman. Fault aside, an action epic that is part war, part superhero and part spy genre still has an universal appeal to audience worldwide.
Elven Ho