Aka - Dragon

Dragon is the American version with large cuts. I watched the Hong Kong version.

For a film that titles itself Wu Xia or its Chinese translation Martial Arts Chivalry, it is surprisingly introspective, murky, dark and morally complex. The wuxia aspects are intertwined in the narrative but almost a sideline to the main thrust as this explores themes of identity, family, redemption, sacrifice, righteousness and obsession. Wuxia is the enticer, but not really the point of the film. Perhaps for a film directed by Peter Chan and scripted by two women - Aubrey Lam and Joyce Chan, one would not expect a masculine standard story of heroics. Good guys and bad guys. Though it is in some ways a homage to the Shaw Brothers, it does so in a unique manner. It is a hard film to get your arms around - part wuxia, part Holmesian detective story, part love story - but told in a broken dreamy narrative.


Peter Chan had distanced himself from action films for most of his directorial career - instead helming comedies for UFO and the sublime Comrades, Almost a Love Story - until he went down that path as nearly every Hong Kong director has to eventually with the 2008 Warlords - a big fat epic period film. And Aubrey Lam has directed a few fine films - Twelve Nights, Hidden Track and Anna & Anna - but none that would make you think of having her script a wuxia - though she had a history with Chan as a scriptwriter on Who's the Woman, Who's the Man, Perhaps Love and Warlords. Joyce Chan had a hand in scripting Bodyguards and Assassins and Warlords. And then you have Donnie Yen to choreograph the martial arts. It makes for more of an intriguing, different film than I was expecting. But one I admired more than I loved.


The setting is in 1917 in a small rural village that is doing well since a paper mill began operating there. It is a close inter-related town - most people belonging to the Liu Clan and everyone knowing everyone. When boys reach the age of thirteen, they officially become men and the entire village celebrates them in a ritual and the gift of clothes that men wear. The town is headed by a group of elderly benign men who look out for everyone. Five years previously they had adopted Jin-Xi (Donnie Yen) into their clan when he showed up one day, a stranger but one who fell in love with a local woman (Tang Wei) and married her. She had a child on the way from a husband who had deserted her and soon another boy is born to them. A lovely little family with affection being shown by all to all - a small house in the country where they have a cow on the roof. In the morning Jin-Xi wakes up, the wife soon follows, makes breakfast, gets the children ready for school and he goes off to his job in the paper business. An idyllic scene copied a million times over by families all over the earth.


Not for long. Jin-Xi is in his workplace shop when two ruffians walk in and demand money from the owner. As they get physical, he hides behind a counter, not wanting to get involved. Eventually, they spot him and begin tossing him about as he grabs on to the large man and won't let go. It is a frantic frenzied scene as both men try to kill him and by the sheerest of luck they keep missing him. By the end both are dead and Jin-Xi is the village hero and he shyly accepts their accolades and song. Lucky he says. An official investigator though happens to be passing through the town and the more he thinks about what happened, the odder it seems to him. How could this simple peasant have defeated these two vicious criminals, obsesses him.  Bai-ju (Takashi Kaneshiro) has a deep understanding of martial arts, anatomy and acupuncture. He thinks of himself as a righteous man - only the law matters - he even sticks a needle into his body that stops any empathy on his part.


He concludes that what we saw as witnesses is not what we saw and plays in his mind (and on the screen) what really took place and that Jin-Xi must be a master martial artist to make it all look accidental. And though Jin-xi is now leading a quiet exemplary life taking care of his family and being a good citizen - he won't let it go. The law is the law and he begins to dig intrusively (and in an interesting cinematic way) into the background of this man. This inevitably leads to pointless tragedy that effects everyone. The action comes mainly in the second half with the wonderful appearances of Jimmy Wang-yu and Kara Hui in two terrific action sequences. Yen plays his role primarily in blank face as if a needle was stuck into his emotional gland - but it fits the role as if beneath the surface there is a storm brewing that he just doesn't want to surface.  But fate, destiny and one' man's obsession leaves him no choice.  

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