Rise of the Legend

                                                  
Director: Roy Chow
Year: 2014
Rating: 7.5
As soon as I heard the Wong Fei-hung theme (On the General's Orders), I felt at home. It didn't come until late in the film as Wong Fei-hung stood over the grave of a friend and swore justice, but all of a sudden, the film clicked for me. I read that it had been twenty-years since the last Wong Fei-hung film which shocked me. Drunken Master 2 with Jackie Chan. Did he finally go out of fashion after more than a hundred films about him?  For those few who may not know who he is, Wong Fei-hung was a real historical figure who lived from the mid-1800s to 1925. He was a folk hero and martial artist fighting for justice and has been the subject of many Hong Kong films starring the likes of Jackie, Jet Li, Gordon Liu, Chin Kar-lok and most famously Kwan Tak-hing who portrayed him in a lengthy series of films from 1949 - 1981. He was Wong Fei-hung until Jet Li took over the role in the Once Upon a Time in China series.



The mantle has now been passed on to Eddie Peng, a Taiwanese actor with no martial arts background but who apparently has been working hard to learn some over the past years. The days of true martial artists is nearing its end. Few sane people want to go through the training necessary to do it well on film. The choreography is from Cory Yuen-kwai and no one is better in making the actors look like they are masters. His announced death earlier this year was a sad day for all of us who love Hong Kong film. Here he uses a lot of wire-work, slows the camera down, edits the hell out of it, adds some CGI and gives it a very cool look. He could make me look like I knew what I was doing and Peng and the other characters look fine. Even Sammo Hung at his age is given some life as he jumps all over the place exchanging blows. He is older than I am by a year and still doing it. People can argue about who was the most influential person in Hong Kong films from the 1980s to 2000, but for me it will always be Sammo.



This is an origin film - a completely made up one about Wong Fei-hung but that is what it purports to be. His father (Tony Leung Ka-fai) is also a famous historical martial artist - Wong Kei-ying who is considered one of the Ten Tigers of Canton. In this film he sacrifices himself to save a few orphans and Wong Fei-hung and his friend Fiery are taken in by a monk who teaches them martial arts till they are old enough to leave. They make a bond to stay together and fight the crime lords who are exploiting the people. They also want to search for Little Fa who was stolen when they were all children and they were unable to save her.




Running the docks are the Black Tiger Gang headed by Master Lei - Sammo in a shaded villainous role. Wong joins the gang and works his way up in the hierarchy while Fiery organizes resistance and creates a gang of orphans - including the lovely Chun (Wang Luodan) who has a personal reason to want revenge. The two men pass messages back and forth partly by using a courtesan, Orchid (AngelaBaby), who has an elegant boat to ply her services. This has a near epic feel with a big canvas and lots of extras and sets that look terrific. It has a good simple plot which hits some emotional goals though at 131-minutes it is not too difficult to think of cuts that could have been made.  The action is fierce and brutal with some nice imaginative bits - and a few one on many set-pieces that are a pleasure to watch. But the film doesn't seem to have started up another Wong Fei-hung craze but hopefully it won't be another 20-years till the next one. This one was directed by Hong Kong filmmaker Roy Chow.