When I watch a kung-fu movie I'm looking for some simple elements. Good fight scenes, entertaining characters, a hero to cheer for and a villain to hate. Ultimately, a movie that takes me out of reality a little bit.
The "hero" of the movie starts off as the mindless unstoppable killing machine who is the secret weapon of the cultist army. But then we get some backstory involving his mother and his tragic past and suddenly he is just a simple boy who is kind of cute and naive in a charming way? It's a strange shift. He is told he needs to learn Chen style kung-fu to realign his energy flow or he will die. His army and master are killed so he is free and so he travels to Chen village.
The "villain" in this movie was way too easy to empathize with.
The small village we are supposed to be rooting for as they are bullied by the westerners just comes across as elitist and snobby. They treat the "villain" as an outsider because of his family origins even though he lived there his whole life, and even bully him with the kung-fu they refuse to teach to him or any "outsiders" They also refuse to teach our "hero" and actually try to beat him up many times.
We could probably easily respect their tradition of not teaching outsiders but no screen time is given to developing or explaining that tradition so it just seems cruel.
The movie escalates into a tragedy which will draw the attention of the foreign soldiers and most likely lead to the destruction of the village, and it's all just too GRAY. In kung-fu movies I like things black and white, good and evil, right and wrong... this movie left me unsure of who to even care about or who to root for.
The production value is high, so the movie looks good, visually. The fight scenes are mediocre and too few, with too many effects that just don't add to the experience they way they are supposed to. There are even cartoonish freeze frames and game-like text (reminiscent of Scott Pilgrim) which would make this movie seem like pure entertainment, but it keeps bogging itself back down in muddy reality by balancing the good and bad of each character.
The ending is a cliffhanger, leaving everything mostly unresolved.
In the end, its the story which is too much like the gray of real life, its the lack of clearly defined characters who I can easily love and hate, which kills this movie for me. Maybe real life is like that, but if I wanted to feel the complex tragedy of the human condition I wouldn't be watching a kung-fu movie.
I just don't know what this movie wanted to be, and I get the feeling the director didn't either.
The "hero" of the movie starts off as the mindless unstoppable killing machine who is the secret weapon of the cultist army. But then we get some backstory involving his mother and his tragic past and suddenly he is just a simple boy who is kind of cute and naive in a charming way? It's a strange shift. He is told he needs to learn Chen style kung-fu to realign his energy flow or he will die. His army and master are killed so he is free and so he travels to Chen village.
The "villain" in this movie was way too easy to empathize with.
The small village we are supposed to be rooting for as they are bullied by the westerners just comes across as elitist and snobby. They treat the "villain" as an outsider because of his family origins even though he lived there his whole life, and even bully him with the kung-fu they refuse to teach to him or any "outsiders" They also refuse to teach our "hero" and actually try to beat him up many times.
We could probably easily respect their tradition of not teaching outsiders but no screen time is given to developing or explaining that tradition so it just seems cruel.
The movie escalates into a tragedy which will draw the attention of the foreign soldiers and most likely lead to the destruction of the village, and it's all just too GRAY. In kung-fu movies I like things black and white, good and evil, right and wrong... this movie left me unsure of who to even care about or who to root for.
The production value is high, so the movie looks good, visually. The fight scenes are mediocre and too few, with too many effects that just don't add to the experience they way they are supposed to. There are even cartoonish freeze frames and game-like text (reminiscent of Scott Pilgrim) which would make this movie seem like pure entertainment, but it keeps bogging itself back down in muddy reality by balancing the good and bad of each character.
The ending is a cliffhanger, leaving everything mostly unresolved.
In the end, its the story which is too much like the gray of real life, its the lack of clearly defined characters who I can easily love and hate, which kills this movie for me. Maybe real life is like that, but if I wanted to feel the complex tragedy of the human condition I wouldn't be watching a kung-fu movie.
I just don't know what this movie wanted to be, and I get the feeling the director didn't either.