Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon

Honor. It’s a funny word that evokes strong emotion. It makes one do things they wouldn’t rationally do. Some kill for it. Some die for it. In some cultures it is the most important thing one could possess and losing it is worse than losing life itself. Honor is the cornerstone of the movie, Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon. In this epic directed by Daniel Lee, action star Andy Lau portrays Zhao Zilong, a man of humble beginnings who rises up to be a prized general in the Wu army. The movie is set in a divided China in 228 A.D. There are three kingdoms: Wei, Wu, and Shu. Zilong joins the Wu army in order to bring peace and start a family of his own. He fights gallantly and humbly to make himself one of the Five Tiger Generals, never taking defeat from the Cao army. However, in his older years he is the only surviving Tiger General left. He is forced to face off against the Cao army once again and this time it is a little different.

Three Kingdoms is a movie that comes full circle. The movie opens up with Zilong, hair grey with age, and his brother, Ping-An (Sammo Hung Kam-Bo) sitting on the stairs of an old building. Snow is swirling around them and the hopeless look on Zilong’s face tells the story of the state he is in. The story then begins its flashback to Zilong’s younger days. The story tells of how Zilong joins the army, fights heroically in battle, saves a baby from certain death, and becomes the only undefeated general in the nation. It then goes on to set up for the last battle against the Cao army. By this time, both Zilong and Ping-An have been in the army for 32 years. This would be Zilong’s last crusade and it would be against the granddaughter of the king he defeated so many years before. As the battle rages on, Zilong is forced back to the same fortress he had found glory in so many decades ago. This is where the opening scene is played again. Wounded and cold as the first snow begins to fall, Zilong refuses to surrender. Instead, he mounts his horse and gallops toward the enemy, preserving his honor as a war hero.

Another interesting narrative pattern the director uses is that the story is told from Ping-An’s point of view. Ping-An is a man whom Zilong considers his brother. He is an obese man who does not fit the profile of a “might warrior.” However, this does not change his heart. During a raid on an opposing army, Zilong saves his brother’s life. Once Zilong achieves the rank of general, Ping-An is left in his brother’s shadow. On two occasions when the emperor asks Zilong if he is willing to go to battle, Ping-An is off to the side saying that he is too. He never gets the glory he longs for but instead, lives it through his brother. Ping-An yearns to be a war hero but never accomplishes that goal. Yet instead of jealousy, he reacts to and talks about Zilong’s success with great pride. He tells the story through the eyes of an admiring sibling not an envious opponent. As the story concludes and Ping-An is giving his last narration, he preserves the honor of his general even though the battle was a sure loss. It is an interesting dynamic and not one that I expected to see in this film.

Robin-B-Hood

Can the beloved Jackie Chan ever play a negative character? For the first time he does in the Benny Chan comedy, Robin-B-Hood. However, I would not consider Fong (Jackie Chan) a bad guy. Sure, he is a thief who steals from the rich and then squanders all his wealth on Black Jack games and horse races but he is a gambler with a good side. When Fong and the rest of his cat burglar team, Octopus (Louis Koo) and the Landlord (Michael Hui), get caught up in a kidnapping plot involving a baby, Fong and Octopus have a change of heart. As a result, the two find themselves as interim parents fighting off the bad guys and keeping the baby safe and trying to get him home. Fong and Octopus put a new spin on childrearing in this hilarious action packed film.

One of the more profound cinematic devices the director uses is the choreography. Jackie Chan is famous for the fight scenes in his movies and in Hood he doesn’t disappoint. With the overly emphasized punches and roundhouses as scene in many Asian martial arts films, the fighting draws the audience in. The team work between Fong and Octopus makes them an unbeatable force. What makes this movie differ, however, from the other films I have watched is that many of the scenes are hilarious. The other martial arts movies I have viewed have fight scenes that take place in the middle of war and there is often bloodshed. In Hood, the fighting is laugh-out-loud funny and cleverly choreographed. Here is a link to YouTube of a video clip showing a fight scene where Fong and Octopus fight off men trying to steal the child from them: Fight Scene.

In spite of its goofiness and light heartedness, the story line of the Hood is complex. A narrative pattern that exists within the movie is that there are multiple stories that revolve around Fong and Octopus. Fong has gotten himself in deep with McDaddy—a man whom he owes thousands of dollars. Fong is being chased down by McDaddy and his possie at the same time the child thieves are after him. He also has family issues after being shunned by his father for being a “crook.” Octopus has a pregnant young wife with whom he wants nothing to do with. He is a womanizer who is too obsessed with his Ferrari. However, his wife won’t give up on him and he goes through a personal journey to seek and find what family should really be. There is also the baby’s grandfather who is behind the entire kidnapping plot. Though what he is doing is a horrible offense, once the audience learns his tragic story their heart can’t help but break for him. He is nothing more than a troubled old man who fell into psychotic turmoil after losing his family. The story lines are complex but are woven together in a way that makes it look simple and almost shallow.

Robin-B-Hood is a movie that is fully illogical, irrational, and a total blast. I found myself driven to tears because how hard I was laughing. It is a witty film filled with humor, action, and a lot of heart. It teaches about family and finding redemption despite your past. Behind its silly and ridiculous exterior, lies a story for anyone. Besides, who wouldn’t want to watch a movie with an adorable little baby in it?

An Empress and the Warriors

Can a kingdom with centuries of bloodied hands ever find peace? This is the question the movie, An Empress and the Warriors, addresses. This Dragon Dynasty film tells the tale of Yan Feier (played by Kelly Chen) who must assume the thrown after her father is assassinated by her cousin and film antagonist, Hu Ba (Xiaodong Guo). However, Ba does not approve of the kingdom’s first Empress and plans for her failure. During Feier’s military training, Ba sends out a secret team to attempt to assassinate her. Feier escapes the attack but not unscathed. She is shot by a poisonous arrow, thrown from her horse, and is left unconscious in the woods. Here, Feier is rescued by a hermit doctor, Duan Lanquan (Leon Lai), with a dark past. During her recovery, Feier not only falls in love with the doctor but also gains a vision of what her new empire could be, a nation of peace.

Lanquan’s home is full of medical and technical advancements of the time; the most important is the hot air balloon he is constructing. I found this balloon to be a vital visual trope in the film. Feier does not believe that it is possible for man to fly but Lanquan is determined to prove her wrong. Once they take flight in this new phenomenon, Feier is shown a whole new world. From the skies, the world below is peaceful and calm. There are no wars, there is no bloodshed. Lanquan, a former warrior himself, believes that the world can be the same in the air and on the ground. He encourages Feier to return to her kingdom and to make a way to bring this kind of peace to her people. The balloon represents two things, peace and overcoming the impossible. Until that moment, flying had been a thing only for the birds but Lanquan achieved it. Just like flight was possible, so could attaining peace and it is Feier’s duty to overcome this hurdle. The very end of the movie ties together this concept of peace and impossibility but the details of that example I will leave that discovery up to the audience.

An Empress and the Warriors is a film full of war, revenge, romance, family troubles, courage and the strength of one young woman to change her existing world forever. Epic battle sequences and complex choreographed fight scenes keep the audience on edge.

Fist of Legend

In this film the main point of this story is one of vengeance. The main character Chen Zhen, played by Jet Li, finds out that his Kung Fu master died while fighting in a challenge match. We later learn that the master was poisoned indirectly by the Japanese. Chen Zhen then fights 3 different Japanese Samurai Masters in order to exact vengeance on those who were responsible for the death of his master.

The time period for this film takes place in 1937 during the Japanese occupation of China at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. This film takes place before the actual war between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan actually started. At this point the Japanese military has marched into Shanghai and claimed to place the area under Japanese protectorate, which was code at that time for Japanese military occupation.

Throughout this movie there is a cinematic device employed where Jet Li’s character Chen Zhen is filmed primarily on the left side of the screen during the vast majority of the duologue (this can be observed in the following picture on the right). However, during the fighting sequences he is very dynamic in character and is seen moving all throughout the shot in order to promote a sense of reality to the fight sequences. The primary villain of the film, General Fujita is filmed primarily on the right side of the screen, thus showing a distinction from good and evil between Chen and Fujita. However, because this films major theme is vengeance, Chen does migrate from the right to the left on occasion during specifically darker parts of the film. This change in camera angle shows some of the inner turmoil which is occurring inside of Chen during the entirety of the film. One visual trope in this movie is the sign for acceptance. This sign is seen early on in the film on the wall of Jing Wu, the Kung Fu school where Chen studied. At the time that Chen finds out about his master’s death, he rips the sign off the wall and breaks it in half while bowing to his master’s shrine. This symbolizes that there can no longer be acceptance because of the death of the master at the hand of the Japanese. This is a pivotal moment in the film because this symbolizes that the Chinese no longer accept the Japanese occupation of Shanghai.

There is also the issue of acceptance for the two major female characters in the film as well. Chen develops a relationship with a Japanese woman named Mitsuko Yamada who is a schoolmate of Chen’s while he is studying in Japan at the beginning of the film. When Mitsuko’s testimony during court keeps Chen out of jail from a false accusation, Chen invites her to stay at Jing Wu with him. However, because she is Japanese, the rest of the people at Jing Wu do not wish for her to stay there and they do not accept her. Therefore she is not accepted because of her heritage.

Rose, the other major female character, who is Ting An’s (the new master of Jing Wu) girlfriend actually turns out to be a prostitute. However, she is accepted into life at Jing Wu because she is Chinese and not Japanese. The people there at the school are willing to look past the fact that she is a prostitute and prepare a new life for her.

I find this to be interesting because it really seems to show the differences in culture here because of how the Chinese were very willing to accept a prostitute that was Chinese over a Japanese woman, who was of a very distinct and rich Japanese family. The culture back then, would have frowned very much on a relationship between a respected Kung Fu Master and a Chinese prostitute. However, the fact that this was accepted over a Japanese/Chinese relationship really makes me look twice at the racial prejudice that is apparent in this film. Granted, I know that this was placed in the film for a reason, however, I can see the same thing occur in society today in America. However, I do not personally know of anyone that was a prostitute and was then given a whole new life because on of her clients decided he loved her; but I have seen families not speak to each other as a result of a racial dispute. This is something in America that is on the decline, but never the less it is still present in society today.

Legend of the Red Dragon

I recently watched the movie Legend of the Red Dragon with Jet Li. This movie follows a Shaolin Master who's family was murdered throughout his quest for vengeance. One thing that I have begun to notice is that in many of the movies that I have watched for this blog project is that many of the movies involve some manner of tragedy at the beginning, and then a quest to right the wrong which has been committed. As a result, the movie tends to follow the exploits of the Hero, or in some cases the Anti-Hero throughout his or her journey where they encounter all sorts of trouble and by the close of the movie, the main character is either successful or unsuccessful with their mission. All in all, a lesson is normally learned out of the entirety of the film which typically deals with a Chinese maxim or proverb. In this particular film the main theme was simply good triumphing over evil, and how greed can destroy a person.

One such person who was directly affected by greed was the villain in this film known as Ma Ling-Yee. As a side plot in the film there were 5 boys with a tattoo on their backs which detailed the location of the hidden rebel treasure and Yee made it his goal to find this treasure. In order to have all of the map so that he could locate it he had to capture all of the boys. It was this pursuit that caught the attention of Hung Hei-Kwun (played by Jet Li). As a result, Kwun fights Yee and eventually defeats him in the fourth time the two of them meet in battle. Sadly there are no pictures of Yee that I can find on the internet to show you what he looks like, save to say that he wears the armor of a crocodile, and his face makes him look as though he is covered in scales.

I also observed an awful lot of wire work in this film, more so it seemed than in others which I have watched. This served to make what should have been a serious martial arts film into more of a comedy because of the ridiculousness of many of the fight sequences. In the following clip I have included a segment from the film that shows what I mean by the amount of wire work done with this film.

In this segment you can also observe some of the often "quarky" duologue that is not normally characteristic of this particular type of Jet Li movie, however this particular movie has made many different audiences laugh at attempt at serious duologue. Typically these movies are rooted deep in Chinese culture and the duologue often reflects this. However, in this movie, the duologue turns out much like a Stephen Chow film with all of, what I feel is accidental, comic relief sprinkled throughout the movie.

Over all I found this movie to be entertaining, however it was a different style that what I have come to be used to in a Jet Li movie.