Plot
Seven years after the apparent death of Chen Zhen, who was shot after discovering who was responsible for his teacher's death (Huo Yuanjia) in Japanese-occupied Shanghai...
Release Year: 2010
Rating: 6.2/10 (3,224 voted)
Critic's Score: 49/100
Director:
Wai-keung Lau
Stars: Donnie Yen, Alex Ahlstrom, Qi Shu
Storyline Seven years after the apparent death of Chen Zhen, who was shot after discovering who was responsible for his teacher's death (Huo Yuanjia) in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. A mysterious stranger arrives from overseas and befriends a local mafia boss. That man is a disguised Chen Zhen, who intends to infiltrate the mob when they form an alliance with the Japanese. Disguising himself as a caped fighter by night, Chen intends to take out everyone involved as well as get his hands on an assassination list prepared by the Japanese.
Cast: Donnie Yen
-
Chen Zhen
Qi Shu
-
Kiki
Anthony Wong Chau-Sang
-
Liu Yutian
Shawn Yue
-
Yasuaki Kurata
-
Chikaraishi's father
Siyan Huo
-
Weiwei
Ryu Kohata
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Colonel Chikaraishi
Kenji Tanigaki
-
Bo Huang
-
Huang
Akira
-
Sasaki
Alex Ahlstrom
-
American Soldier #2
Karl Dominik
-
Vincent
Jiajia Chen
-
Huang Lan
Zhou Yang
-
Qi Zhishan
Shi Feng
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Opening Weekend: $11,365
(USA)
(24 April 2011)
(4 Screens)
Gross: $48,398
(USA)
(12 June 2011)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
The first Chinese film (also first in Hong Kong film) mixed in "Dolby Surround 7.1" encoding system. Coincidentally, Wai-keung Lau's movie
Kuen sun was the first Hong Kong film mixed in "Dolby Digital EX" 6.1 surround encoding system.
Goofs:
Anachronisms:
The movie is set in 1925, most of the cars are from late 1940s to early 1950s.
User Review
A Nutshell Review: Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
Rating: 8/10
This year marks the 70th year of Bruce Lee's birth, arguably the best
martial artist the cinematic world has ever seen, with his short
filmography still continuing to wow audiences young and old. With
tribute screenings at the Hong Kong International Film Festival earlier
this year, and at the Tokyo International Film Festival later this
month, director Andrew Lau, writer Gordan Chan and leading kung-fu icon
of the moment Donnie Yen pay their collective tribute with Legend of
the Fist, taking one of the most memorable of Bruce Lee's characters
Chen Zhen and imagining a follow up story.
But wait, wasn't the final shot in Fist of Fury quite definitive? But
as movie rules are concerned, nothing's canon if you don't see it, so a
slew of gunshots count for nothing, passing it off as one of many
rumours to discount his death, when in actual fact Chen Zhen (now with
Yen picking up the mantle) is still alive and kicking, and sent packing
to the WWI front in France to fight alongside his Chinese labourer
compatriots against the Axis forces. It's an unsatisfactory explanation
I know, but one of the rare blips in what I thought was a riveting
story concocted that alas was let down by a clichéd ending that was too
abrupt to be satisfying, leaving doors open for another film if it does
happen.
Other than that, Legend of the Fist continues how Bruce Lee films were
steeped in Chinese nationalism, only here it went with trumpets blaring
with any given opportunity. Chen Zhen assumes a dead comrade's identity
to return to Shanghai keeping jolly well under the Japanese's radar,
where now the city in the early 20s gets carved up into settlements,
with a microscopic representation of the internal chaos existing within
the nightclub of influential Shanghainese businessman Liu Yiutian
(Anthony Wong), with whom Chen Zhen befriends, for an ulterior motive
of course, since he's now with the resistance, and the Casablanca club
providing a hotbed of information as they plot and counterplot moves
against the Japanese's brewing aggression.
Of late there's been a wave of such nationalistic movies that Donnie
Yen tend to get involved in, such as Bodyguards and Assassins, and his
more recent and successful Ip Man films, where Chinese people gather
around a representative hero of their time to defeat foreign
aggressors, where even in Ip Man 1, we see and expect the same
mano-a-mano against a Japanese general who shows off his fair share of
kung-fu knowhow. Like how many caricatures would be crafted in many
more films that deal with that difficult period in Chinese history.
While Yen had portrayed historical characters in those films, this one
he continues with a fictional one made famous by a historical martial
artist in Lee.
As a film steeped in paying homage to Lee, there are times where you
feel the characters and action get shackled from freedom of expression,
but this is not always a bad thing. I had followed Donnie Yen's career
pretty early when he was still doing television serials for Hong Kong's
ATV, where he played Chen Zhen in a storyline that had to mimic Fist of
Fury, but expanded to include a romance with a Japanese woman. Like
some television dramas that gets new lease of life on the big screen,
it helped that Yen has experience in portraying the role other than a
few others like Jet Li in another feature film that was a remake, but
this one had the guts to continue where the film / series left off with
a new spin.
While aspects of the Chen Zhen character were toned down probably
because the character has to continue staying under the radar, gone are
the high shrieks when he fights in the beginning (purists, please don't
worry, you'll hear that toward the end), and got replaced by plenty of
what I thought was MMA executed in brilliantly brutal fashion, starting
with the prologue action sequence which had Chen Zhen being that one
man soldier, followed by yet another nod in Bruce Lee's direction when
dressed in a deliberate Kato costume. I'd say if not for his age, I'd
give my vote to Yen if he were to be casted as Kato in the upcoming
Green Hornet film in lieu of Jay Chou.
More Lee homages were to come, with the necessity to go shirtless in
highlighting the chiseled physique that has its fair share of
punishment, and what would be defining of Lee in Fist of Fury with the
use of the nunchaks, although with all due respect to Yen, Lee is quite
indomitable in this area, and the filmmakers here can only up the ante
by throwing in a lot more goons to dispatch of in the same dojo from
the earlier film. Yen took the action choreographer reins, and
skillfully designed some spectacular fight sequences for action junkies
to go wow over, balancing the homage aspects as well as coming up with
some really violent, finishing moves to rid opponents. Watch this in a
cinema with a proper sound system decked out will heighten that sense
surround of being within the all round action.
The story's pretty much plain sailing with little surprises thrown in
other than to present shifting loyalties in a tumultuous time, where
Anthony Wong lends gravitas, Chinese actor Huang Bo providing comic
relief as a corrupt policeman, and Shu Qi lending her vocals yet again
as a club hostess already seen in films like Blood Brothers. While the
story wouldn't be as iconic as Fist of Fury's, the fight action
sequences lived up to its billing, and celebrated manifold the legend
of Bruce Lee's instead.
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