SHERDOG MOVIE CLUB: Week 259 - Fist of Legend (1994)

[europe1]

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Here's a quick list of all movies watched by the SMC. Or if you prefer, here's a more detailed examination.

Our Director
Gordon Chan

Gordon Chan was born in 1960 in Hong Kong. He is a writer and producer, known for Ye shou xing jing (1998), A1 tou tiao (2004) and The Medallion (2003).

Our Stars
Bad Dude from Lethal Weapon 4

Film Overview



Premise: In 1937, a Chinese martial artist returns to Shanghai to find his teacher dead and his school harassed by the Japanese.

Budget: $???

Box Office: $???

Trivia
(courtesy of IMDB)

* Jet Li plays Chen Zhen in this movie, a student of master Huo Yuanjia. Jet Li would then go on to play Master Huo Yuanjia in Fearless (2006)

* Fist of Legend was a major inspiration for the fight scenes in The Matrix.

* The U.S Version made by Miramax for its release on video in 2000 immediately caused an uproar with the Hong Kong Cinema fan community because it contained only a new English dub/score with alterations to the original dialogue and no original Cantonese option - a process many of their Hong Kong-acquired titles suffered (not to mention the edits).
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Members: @europe1 @MusterX @Scott Parker 27 @JayPettryMMA @Yotsuya @HARRISON_3 @Bubzeh @the ambush @HenryFlower @Zer @Dirt Road Soldier @DoctorDeelon

 

[europe1]

The entire movie is available on Youtube



Here's an English dub version (though lower quality)

 

[Zer]

This movie really blew me away when I first saw it. I was pretty surprised when I saw @Bullitt68 trashing it. I thought everyone loved Fist of Legend, but Fist of Fury was a nomination that I hadn't seen and I didn't realize there was a connection. I'll have to compare them

 

[Mark6pro]

One of the best martial arts movies!

 

[moreorless87]

This movie really blew me away when I first saw it. I was pretty surprised when I saw @Bullitt68 trashing it. I thought everyone loved Fist of Legend, but Fist of Fury was a nomination that I hadn't seen and I didn't realize there was a connection. I'll have to compare them

Fist of Legend was always intended to be a remake of Fist of Fury although far from the first, Chan did one in the 70's and Donnie Yen did a TV series around the same time as this.

There are some significant difference though, the original Bruce film is much more clearly anti japanese, here you have the modern miltiarist/facist Japanese badguys and the traditional martial arts master shown much more positively. I spose you could arguebly track changing politics by how WW2 is shown, the Japanese mostly badguys in the 70's(Woo-Ping directed Legend of a Fighter from 1982 another one) then becoming a bit more nuanced by the 90's and now arguably back to more badguys with stuff like Ip Man as HK becomes more linked to mainland China.

Fist of Legend did I'd guess end up being a big gateway into HK martial arts action for alot of people growing up in the 90's as it was one of the easiest films to get hold of and indeed how Woo-Ping got into Hollywood via the Wachowskis being fans. The fight scenes are I think definitely the best thing about it, you could argue as a whole it looks rather generic, not at the level of way John Woo or Tsui Hark films from that era.

Relative to the Bruce film I think you could argue Jet doesnt quite have the same badass persona, typically he was more the calm master. The choergraphy is more advanced than the 70's film but the 90's one does end up using a good deal of under cranking which I think looks a bit dated now and the Bruce film generally looks more stylish for me, especially the final showdown.

 

[Bullitt68]

Fist of Fury was a nomination that I hadn't seen and I didn't realize there was a connection.

Like moreorless mentioned, Fist of Fury is (along with Enter the Dragon) one of the most frequently remade martial arts films. (No joke, immediately upon release people started remaking it, as early as something like the Angela Mao vehicle Hapkido/Lady Kung Fu.) Fist of Legend is one of the few direct remakes and definitely the most popular. But it's just one of the many times that Jet Li has paid homage to Bruce Lee. From Once Upon a Time in China, in which one of the main inspirations for the ladder fight was the pagoda structure of The Game of Death, to Black Mask with him going through the whole film in Kato gear and Kiss of the Dragon with one of the millions of versions out there of the Fist of Fury "storming the dojo" scene which even ends with him attaching everyone's feet just like Bruce.

I'll have to compare them

Trust me, even if you've only seen a handful of martial arts movies, the second you watch Fist of Fury you're going to realize that 99.9% of martial arts movies have at least been influenced by if they have not taken stuff directly from Fist of Fury.

But let me tell you right now: There is no comparison

Relative to the Bruce film I think you could argue Jet doesnt quite have the same badass persona, typically he was more the calm master.

Not to mention the goofy camp-comedy element to the action. It's one thing to have comedic relief - even in Fist of Fury, Bruce tips his telephone repairman hat to Jerry Lewis - but our first introduction to Jet Li in action is played for laughs with that stupid classroom fight scene. And don't even get me fucking started on that insufferably retarded blindfold sparring session or whatever the fuck that was, which wasn't played for laughs but which only inspires in me mocking laughter or tears of rage.

God, just thinking about this stupid movie gets me angry

Anyway, to the subject of Jet Li - and of Jet Li versus Bruce Lee in terms of their respective star personas - you're attributing a certain weakness to Li and his star persona, but for as much as I hate Fist of Legend I actually want to defend Li. The problem here is not with him, it's with the direction. If you look at something like Lethal Weapon 4, Li did something that none of his martial arts movie peers can claim, not Bruce not Jackie not even Seagal or Van Damme: He was a terrifying villain. Similar to seeing Arnold as a terrifying villain and then embracing him as a hero after The Terminator, Li's entry into Hollywood with Lethal Weapon 4 was as a vicious killer criminal and he nailed it.

I couldn't find a better quality version, but my go-to scene is the rooftop scene where he kills one of his soldiers.



Not to mention the home invasion scene.



So for me it's not a charisma problem. He can be a bad ass - not on the same level as Bruce Lee, but then no one is, so that isn't saying anything, and certainly not anything negative about Li - he just wasn't in Fist of Legend. And that comes down to the direction and the characterization chosen for his character. They removed the rage at the heart of Lee's character. Through the entirety of Fist of Fury, Lee is looking for a fight. At no point in Fist of Legend, however, is Li looking for a fight. He's not Lee on a revenge quest, he's not Seagal kicking ass and taking names. That's not the character that he's playing. He's not even Donnie Yen's Ip Man, friendly and polite but pushed to a breaking point and lashing out. Maybe because he was coming off of Once Upon a Time in China and still had some Wong Fei-hung clinging to him in the filmmakers' eyes, but they made him that kind of peaceable/pacifist type character and that's not conducive to being a bad ass in that manner.

The choergraphy is more advanced than the 70's film but the 90's one does end up using a good deal of under cranking which I think looks a bit dated now and the Bruce film generally looks more stylish for me, especially the final showdown.

Is it, though? If you ask me, beyond large-scale fight scenes, not even isolated sequences in action of Fist of Legend are anything to write home about. I mean, just look at this:

What in Fist of Legend can even compare with that bad ass yet intricate, aggressive yet technical choreography and execution? Fist of Legend is all style and no substance, and like you say even the style is obnoxious.

Long story short: I love martial arts movies, I love Jet Li, but Fist of Legend sucks.

 

[moreorless87]

What in Fist of Legend can even compare with that bad ass yet intricate, aggressive yet technical choreography and execution? Fist of Legend is all style and no substance, and like you say even the style is obnoxious.

Long story short: I love martial arts movies, I love Jet Li, but Fist of Legend sucks.

I spose it does play into what I said about Jet's persona and what the films are looking to achieve. In the original I think Bruce fits perfectly as the character is just massively pissed off and more than a little arrogant, his no nonsense fast grounded style(clue someone posting a gif of him spinning around with those two dummies) works perfectly inflicting maximum punishment.

Rewatching Fist of Legend it does I think seem a little bit mixed up in what its trying to do with the fight scenes. There is I think a bit of an idea that its trying to shift the story with Chen's character having to fight "soft style" to win as the film evolves reflecting the story being more about getting along with the moderate Japanese. I'm not sure it ever really feels like the film fully invests in it and the big fights against the two Japanese masters do stay mostly aggressive. The kind of more complex moves and athletic counters in the choreography latter in the film do end up feeling a bit neither one thing or the other.

Maybe partly down to the way it was made? Woo-Ping is known as a choreographer in hollywood but in HK he'd graduated to full director way back in the 70's doing stuff like Chan's Drunken Master, he's actually taking a downgrade in career working under Gordon Chan with Fist of Legend and perhaps you could argue the two of them were trying to do something different?

The ironic thing is personally the martial arts cinema I preffer Woo-Ping(and Sammo Hung) really helped launch. After the Bruce films honestly I'm not a massive fan of a lot of martial arts stuff from the 70's, it feels a bit too slow and dance like, I'm guessing more a direct shift from display wushu and peking opera. The latter 70's and early 80's stuff like Drunken Master, Knockabout, etc and I think injects a bit more speed and aggression to it and then ultimately the kickboxing style of the 80's actually feels much closer to Bruce's career.

 

[Bullitt68]

I spose it does play into what I said about Jet's persona and what the films are looking to achieve. In the original I think Bruce fits perfectly as the character is just massively pissed off and more than a little arrogant, his no nonsense fast grounded style(clue someone posting a gif of him spinning around with those two dummies) works perfectly inflicting maximum punishment.

QFT. In addition to the gif I posted, I also love when he beats the shit out of the dudes making fun of him outside of the zoo. He's just grabbing them by the collars, throwing them around, and punching them out. There are no pretty forms, no ornate techniques: He's just fucking people up.

And side note, that's why Ip Man is the best "remake" of Fist of Fury. The one-against-ten scene, which is Donnie Yen's Fist of Fury storming the dojo scene, is the closest thing to Bruce's rage. The skill is there, but it's such a raw ass whipping

Rewatching Fist of Legend it does I think seem a little bit mixed up in what its trying to do with the fight scenes. There is I think a bit of an idea that its trying to shift the story with Chen's character having to fight "soft style" to win as the film evolves reflecting the story being more about getting along with the moderate Japanese. I'm not sure it ever really feels like the film fully invests in it and the big fights against the two Japanese masters do stay mostly aggressive. The kind of more complex moves and athletic counters in the choreography latter in the film do end up feeling a bit neither one thing or the other.

QFT again.

Maybe partly down to the way it was made? Woo-Ping is known as a choreographer in hollywood but in HK he'd graduated to full director way back in the 70's doing stuff like Chan's Drunken Master, he's actually taking a downgrade in career working under Gordon Chan with Fist of Legend and perhaps you could argue the two of them were trying to do something different?

Yet another @europe1-patented BJ Penn head nod.

The ironic thing is personally the martial arts cinema I preffer Woo-Ping(and Sammo Hung) really helped launch. After the Bruce films honestly I'm not a massive fan of a lot of martial arts stuff from the 70's, it feels a bit too slow and dance like, I'm guessing more a direct shift from display wushu and peking opera. The latter 70's and early 80's stuff like Drunken Master, Knockabout, etc and I think injects a bit more speed and aggression to it and then ultimately the kickboxing style of the 80's actually feels much closer to Bruce's career.

QFT yet again. I actually just (and when I say "just" I mean like half an hour ago) did a little Q&A thing for an online Chinese film festival discussing the Ip Man films and martial arts movies and I spent some time talking about (a) Hung as such an overlooked figure in the history of martial arts cinema and (b) this exact trajectory of slower, more dance-like "demonstration" stuff versus the faster and rawer "fight" stuff.

I love Gordon Liu, I enjoy his fight scenes in stuff like The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Eight Diagram Pole Fighter, but if we look at the whole of the 70s and 80s Hong Kong kung fu "Golden Age," after Bruce Lee I'm going right to the Sammo Hung-Jackie Chan-Yuen Biao stuff. The Prodigal Son has some seriously underrated martial arts choreography, Wheels on Meals is extraordinary. Hung absolutely brought more speed to the choreography and also just more contact. It's not just silly little wrist taps during the endless series of blocks and parries. He'll have dudes throwing fast and hard punches, coming down with heavy elbows, etc., and all of the movements and strikes have way more "pop" and "oomph" to them.

 

[moreorless87]

QFT. In addition to the gif I posted, I also love when he beats the shit out of the dudes making fun of him outside of the zoo. He's just grabbing them by the collars, throwing them around, and punching them out. There are no pretty forms, no ornate techniques: He's just fucking people up.

And side note, that's why Ip Man is the best "remake" of Fist of Fury. The one-against-ten scene, which is Donnie Yen's Fist of Fury storming the dojo scene, is the closest thing to Bruce's rage. The skill is there, but it's such a raw ass whipping

Yep I wouldnt really disagree, you could argue its not really a true remake I spose but it does end up covering pretty similar ground.

It does generally feel a lot more lush to me as well, the Bruce original whilst yeah it can have some rough edges a lot of it looks really good whilst Fist of Legend almost looks like a TV series to me rewatching it now. In the same period stuff like Once Upon A Time in China1 & 2, Iron Monkey, The Blade, etc all looked a lot better as well for me.

I actually think Jet covered this kind of story more sucessfully with Fearless/Huo Yuanjia in the 00's as well, maybe parts of it are a bit sappy but it looks a lot better and a scene like the sword duel between the two masters does have an intense brutality to it.

QFT yet again. I actually just (and when I say "just" I mean like half an hour ago) did a little Q&A thing for an online Chinese film festival discussing the Ip Man films and martial arts movies and I spent some time talking about (a) Hung as such an overlooked figure in the history of martial arts cinema and (b) this exact trajectory of slower, more dance-like "demonstration" stuff versus the faster and rawer "fight" stuff.

I love Gordon Liu, I enjoy his fight scenes in stuff like The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Eight Diagram Pole Fighter, but if we look at the whole of the 70s and 80s Hong Kong kung fu "Golden Age," after Bruce Lee I'm going right to the Sammo Hung-Jackie Chan-Yuen Biao stuff. The Prodigal Son has some seriously underrated martial arts choreography, Wheels on Meals is extraordinary. Hung absolutely brought more speed to the choreography and also just more contact. It's not just silly little wrist taps during the endless series of blocks and parries. He'll have dudes throwing fast and hard punches, coming down with heavy elbows, etc., and all of the movements and strikes have way more "pop" and "oomph" to them.

I think you have the earlier Sammo/Woo-Ping were the films are still "kung fu" in terms of having elaborate forms, stuff like Iron Fisted Monk, Drunken Master, The Magnificat Butcher, Warriors Two, The Victim, Legend of a Fighter and Prodigal Son but there is I think more speed and aggression to them.

You did around the early 80's I think have a very definite shift in style dropping the more elaborate forms in favour of fights more based on kickboxing, maybe The Young Master as the first of those? Hwang in Sik as the evil master does do some more elabourate joint lock stuff but mostly its more direct and brutal, especially the scene were he escapes his guards with Mars the Bringer of War playing. Wheels on Meals might be quite light in tone generally but the first between Chan and Benny is I think very much a spiritual sucessor to Bruce's style.

 

[Bullitt68]

I actually think Jet covered this kind of story more sucessfully with Fearless/Huo Yuanjia in the 00's as well, maybe parts of it are a bit sappy but it looks a lot better and a scene like the sword duel between the two masters does have an intense brutality to it.

I've been meaning to rewatch this but I never think of it. I watched it when it came out, didn't really like it, and never went back to it. I've got to remember the next time I'm having a Jet Li marathon to throw Fearless into the mix. Is it just better than Fist of Legend (which isn't saying much for me) or do you genuinely enjoy it (which would say more for me)?

You did around the early 80's I think have a very definite shift in style dropping the more elaborate forms in favour of fights more based on kickboxing, maybe The Young Master as the first of those? Hwang in Sik as the evil master does do some more elabourate joint lock stuff but mostly its more direct and brutal, especially the scene were he escapes his guards with Mars the Bringer of War playing. Wheels on Meals might be quite light in tone generally but the first between Chan and Benny is I think very much a spiritual sucessor to Bruce's style.

Absolutely. That fight scene in particular is a "remake" itself: It's Jackie's comedic version of Bruce's come-from-behind/adapt-to-win fight with Chuck Norris in The Way of the Dragon. But yeah, the 80s is when a lot of the historical period stuff fell away and films became more modern, set in contemporary times and taking place in urban areas like the Hollywood action stuff that was starting to take over in the West and like the John Woo stuff that would come to take over in the East. From Wheels on Meals and Police Story to Yes, Madam and Righting Wrongs, the 80s films were worlds apart from virtually all of the 70s stuff (excepting Bruce's stuff again).

Man, I wrote a review of a book on kung fu comedies, then I did a couple of online things about martial arts, now I'm in here talking with you - I wasn't planning on it but I'm starting to feel the need to watch a bunch of martial arts movies

 

[moreorless87]

I've been meaning to rewatch this but I never think of it. I watched it when it came out, didn't really like it, and never went back to it. I've got to remember the next time I'm having a Jet Li marathon to throw Fearless into the mix. Is it just better than Fist of Legend (which isn't saying much for me) or do you genuinely enjoy it (which would say more for me)?

Its been awhile since I watched it as well, my memory is it gets a little sappy in the middle and is more obviously pushing towards Chinese nationalism but it looks good and I think Jet's character is more interesting with the fight scenes reflecting it better. Again i think the fight against the rival master in the middle does a better job of being an "angry" showdown.

 

[europe1]

This movie really blew me away when I first saw it.

Yeah I have no idea what Bullitt68 the Martian is saying here.

Fist of Legend is like a gauntlet. It's a speedily told story with plenty of chopsocky-scenes sprinkled in-between. In doing this, I think it succeeds in one of the critical components of action/martial arts movies. These movies have to feel dynamic and energetic, always maintains its momentum. Fist of Legend does that pretty damn excellently without wholly losing the plot. That's -- alongside wicked fighting which the movie also delivers -- is the prime ingredients of what you want in a martial film.

That opening scenes where he's crippling all the Japanese student-lynchers felt very much like a forerunner to the Ip Man stuff.

There is I think a bit of an idea that its trying to shift the story with Chen's character having to fight "soft style" to win

Along with that, it also focuses more on the age-old "Martial Arts is about self-improvement, not fighting" angle. The consequences of Jet Li's martial proficiency is constantly pointed out to him, in how it makes people idolize him, in how it upends the harmony of their school, etc. Of course, this is about as cliche a plotline as you can have in a Kung Fu film, but there it is.

That Japanese master even says when Jet Li explains his fighting style: "No, the best way to conquer ones opponent is with a gun."

Speaking of this guy: the movie starts with his students out ready to lynch some random Chinese student and he doesn't even know about it? Wtf? Sounds like a bad Master to me!

you could argue as a whole it looks rather generic, not at the level of way John Woo or Tsui Hark films from that era.

I see where you're coming from but I think the production is a bit to well-heeled to be generic. There's a bit more of a dynamic to it. A polish.

I spose you could arguebly track changing politics by how WW2 is shown, the Japanese mostly badguys in the 70's(Woo-Ping directed Legend of a Fighter from 1982 another one) then becoming a bit more nuanced by the 90'

Of the top of my head, the first martial arts movie I can think of with an out-and-out positive Japanese portray would be... Michelle Yeoh's Royal Warriors from 1986?

Relative to the Bruce film I think you could argue Jet doesnt quite have the same badass persona, typically he was more the calm master.

`

I always imagined that Jet Li is basically what Martial Arts directors want out of their stars.

He's boyishly good looking. Has the skills. But doesn't really have the temperament or the quirks of a Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. He's very standard. You can slide him into the "standard Hero role" without any effort at all. He just has that look and energy.

Angela Mao vehicle Hapkido

(Just kidding I actually remember thinking Hapkido was quite a good flick. That joke just springs into mind whenever the movie is mentioned)

 

[moreorless87]

Along with that, it also focuses more on the age-old "Martial Arts is about self-improvement, not fighting" angle. The consequences of Jet Li's martial proficiency is constantly pointed out to him, in how it makes people idolize him, in how it upends the harmony of their school, etc. Of course, this is about as cliche a plotline as you can have in a Kung Fu film, but there it is.

I like it more than Bulitt but I can see his point that there is a bit of a disconnect between the story and the action, the end showdown feels like its stuck a bit between following the Bruce original as being about justified pissed off anger and the plot of personal growth in the remake.

I always get the sense with Fist of Legend it was made almost as a showcase for HK martial arts cinema in the west, more a sense of "lets show what we can do" in terms of action similar to Drunken Master 2 the same year, both got a strong distribution push in the west anyway on video. I think you could argue before that HK martial arts cinema had dropped off a little in terms of western interest, the wuxia or semi wuxia(not so fantastical but with the same kind of wire heavy elaborate action) like Jets Fong Sai-yuk films or Yen's Iron Monkey that were popular in HK at the time but I get the sense they didnt really take off in the west as much until Crouching Tiger years latter.

 

[Deleted member 484047]

I'm gonna be the outlier here apparently, the movie really did nothing for me. Im not a huge fan of Kung Fu movies, although I can certainly understand the appeal. I think the problem I have with them is that a lot of them, to me at least, seem to follow the same story guidelines. Master/loner/random guy goes on furious beating rampage to get revenge for something or get someone back. It's a story as old as stories, it's been told a thousand times, and it's not super interesting to me unless there is something else in the mix to spice it up.

Dont get me wrong, this isnt a bad film. The choreography is amazing, the sets are great, the outfits are spot on for the time period (I actually looked this up). Its a decently made film that accomplishes what it sets out to do. But it's just not very compelling to me.

 

[MusterX]

I always feel like an outsider looking in on the conflict between Japanese and Chinese and its highlighted in so many films. I will say, some of the fight scenes are like something out of the 3 Stooges like when a guy throws a flying kick at Chen Zhen and gets punched in the dick.

Or when a guy gets kicked across the floor where he knocks over 3 other guys, I can actually hear bowling pins being knocked down in my mind. Don't get me wrong, i love the film, but some of these dudes got the treatment, like this guy getting fish hooked.

Some of it though looked painful on an Ip man level like this guy who definitely is going to need to get surgery on that arm and shoulder.