I watched The Green Hornet movie a few weeks ago, Seth Rogen was way out of his depth and Christoph waltz was criminally misused, and the action was pretty much all slow mo mediocreness. That’s my review within a review! So last night I watched Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen, which is also, a movie featuring The Green Hornets sidekick Kato. It’s a better “Green Hornet movie” than the soulless Hollywood release, but at times the plot gets a little convoluted.
Donnie Yen reprises the part of Chen Zhen, a character first played by Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury, then again by Jet Li in Fist of Legend. I enjoy writing about plot when I decide to review a movie, and of course my experience, but.....I really don’t want to go too deep into the plot details of this movie here, there were multiple subplots running simultaneously, pretty much every conversation that took place in the movie introduced a new scenario, character, plot development, double cross, allegiance, twist or whatever. It sure was all over the place as far as the narrative goes, but still really enjoyable with some quality Donnie Yen directed action.
The first thing to note is the opening sequence. It really is fucking awesome! So imagine a typical action scene from a modern World War 2 movie (but in this case WW1), something like Saints And Soldiers, or even Saving Private Ryan or the Band Of Brothers series. Set in a gritty French village desecrated by war, rubble everywhere, buildings missing roofs, interiors visible from the outside. The allies scattered through the streets trying to evade German bullets flying over their heads. Yep, this is how we get introduced to Chen Zhen, along with a small band of Chinese fighters assisting the allies (English, US, French) against the Germans in world war one. So Chen Zhen (Donnie Yen) and his unit are pinned down in a trench in the middle of this town, he watches as a German machine gun placement mow down his fellow soldiers. His life and the lives of his comrades are clearly hanging by a thread, and then it happens, something that I cannot recall having ever seen in a movie before. And it really is too awesome for words. Donnie Yen launches himself towards the German positions, his movements are so exaggerated as to suggest avoiding bullet storms, he uses Kung Fu and fucking destroys the Germans! Man it is so cool. But this is the movies intro, after some awesome ass kicking we are then taken forward to a post WW1 Shanghai.
As I said before the movie is a little on the convoluted side, but the general gist, Chen Zhen returns to his homeland which is occupied by the Japanese. He fights with a small band of resistance fighters, befriends a mafia boss/club owner which he sees as his way into the Japanese operation as the gangster has formed an alliance with them. He accomplishes this undercover by using the identity of one of his fallen comrades. He is really Chen Zhen, who was apparently shot and killed after finding out who was responsible for and avenging his teachers murder, rolling into fist of fury territory (we see this in the final freeze frame shot in Fist of Fury). He meets with a Japanese colonel (Ryu Kohata) who has a list of ‘priority’ Chinese (intellectuals, professionals etc) to be eliminated. He makes a deal with Chen, he will try and kill them, and Chen can try and save them. Chen Zhen, standing underneath a bill board sees an advertisement for a masked avenger type character (The Green Hornets side kick Kato) and decides to take on the Kato persona to fight against the Japanese without having to reveal who he is. Really it was a good idea, he was using two names, and a lot of people knew his face although he wears a fake moustache when he’s in the non-Chen Zhen persona.
So Chen basically uses his friends and influence with the Shanghai police department to try and save as many of the ‘hit list’ Chinese as possible. Whilst going out at night time and kicking Japanese ass in his Kato mask. There weren’t as many action scenes as I was expecting, there was definitely more drama, but the fights were satisfying and up to the usual high Donnie Yen standard. It was interesting to see Donnie using some of Bruce Lee’s signature traits; he kind of adapted his style slightly to that of Bruce Lees. I’m not a Jeet Kune Do expert by any means, but I’ve seen all 4 of Bruce Lee’s films multiple times (5 if you count Game of Death, but he’s only in the film for 10 minutes or so) and the action scenes were definitely modelled around a typical Bruce Lee style confrontation. Donnie frequently uses huge high-impact kicks taking out multiple attackers at distance whilst surrounded by uniform clad white belts, he used the Bruce Lee noises, and he even got out the nunchaku and busted some Japanese skulls. What was also interesting, the Japanese Colonel, the films antagonist, is the Son of the the boss character Jet Li kills in the Fist Of fury Remake ‘Fist of Legend’, the updated version of Suzuki I assume, the boss that Bruce Lee kills in Fist of Fury. It’s basically the same character. Chen Zhen apparently dead, has returned as Kato to continue his fight against the real “sick men of Asia”.
This flick apparently carries on from a mid 90’s Fist of Fury TV show that I haven’t seen; also starring Yen in the Chen Zhen role, but the whole thing is basically super homage to Bruce Lee. Furtherance of a character allegedly killed in the original fist of fury. Donnie taking on the persona of Kato (Bruce Played the Green Hornets Side Kick in the original 60’s TV Show). There's Chinas biggest modern day action star portraying mannerisms, fighting styles and techniques made Iconic by Chinas biggest ever movie legend, and then the final action scene taking place in the same Dojo which Bruce visited in fist of fury (against his schools wishes) to kick the Japanese asses, and give them their sign back.
It still could have been better as far as the narrative goes. I realise that huge action scenes usually cost more money than shooting a bunch of guys sitting around a table talking, and the production most probably had many constraints, but the Approach to the drama needed to be more streamlined because the type of movie this is really didn’t need the kind of narrative weight the film makers tried to give it.
The Director is Andrew Lau, Probably best known for directing the Infernal Affairs movies. I recommend it to anybody who likes martial arts flicks, Donnie Yen or super hero movies. It’s not a bad film but the only part that really sent me crazy for it was the opening sequence.
