2006
Directed by Ronny Yu
Written by Chris Chow
Starring Jet Li
Martial arts films have never really had a classic--sure, they've dabbled in popularity, they've occasionally been well-known, but a straight martial arts movie has never really been as successful as a film beyond profits on a balance sheet. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, it will always remain a bit depressing that men like Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan don't have a film library to match up with their incredible talents. Jet Li has been able to achieve some greater success, choosing to turn down a lot of ugly American comedy scripts (all of which are then made into hideous films by Jackie Chan) in his attempts to capture American audiences with action movies that have actual quality to them. Jet's problem has been that the choices he's made haven't been very good: Romeo Must Die, Kiss of the Dragon, The One and the DMX-starring Cradle 2 Grave were all abysmal movies, rife with poor casting and terrible dialog. Again and again, the only thing that shone through was Li's performance--his physical perfection, his incredible ability and his strikingly honest charisma were able to make what should have been unwatchable movies entertaining. With an incredible piece of film making like Hero (not an explicit martial-arts film under the aegis of the Factual Opinion) under his belt, Jet seemed poised to strike an even greater note with the French production of Danny the Dog, which consisted of a brilliant score by trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack and gold-rush casting in the form of Morgan Freeman and Bob Hoskins. Sadly, Unleashed, as it was known in America, was another miserable failure; an unbearable story saddled with the sort of nonsense driven characters and idiotic costumes that not even Li's formidable athleticism could save.
Returning to the drawing board, Li decided to retire from the genre with Fearless, another based-on-"true"-Chinese events film, subtitled for American audiences. Hoping, one assumes, to give the Hero loving audiences something more intelligent than the fare Li's name brings, while still giving his core base of action fans enough high kicks to ensure their company. As Li is now 42, referring to Fearless as his "final martial arts epic" makes the film seem that much more important, and the brilliant previews lead the viewer to hope, against all logic, that finally, someone has made a kung-fu movie that isn't going to be saddled with embarrassment.
Unfortunately, logic has done to the beautiful martial arts what all the wires and Matrix films have been attempting to pull off: Fearless is just like all of the rest of them. Yes, the fights are incredible, and the physicality on display are just as amazing as the advertisements led one to believe. Everything else...well, everything else is just like the "else" in any of the other American Jet Li films: stupid, wooden dialog, delivered by boring actors who seem uncomfortable with any sentence beyond a threat or an overly sentimental promise, scenes of incredibly blunt romance between two people who seem to be the only single people on Earth, evildoers bereft of any sensible motive, and, worst of all, pointless violence wrecked upon children and elderly women so that the protagonist can "learn a lesson." Although one can't expect much from the director of Bride of Chucky and Freddy Vs. Jason, and Jet clearly hand his hands full fighting 28% of the population of China, one can still feel slighted, and, yes, even a little angry. Fearless is just like every other bad movie with good action made in any genre--except that it clearly thinks and behaves like it's not. Over and over, the dull script attempts to use the trials and tribulations of it's main character as some kind of statement on man's responsibility to his...what? His family? His country? It's never very clear, and even if it was, it's done so poorly that it does little more to aggravate. Like the crazed teenager in the row behind you, Fearless is the sort of film that makes one cry out, "For God's sake, just get to the fighting!" Fearless, of course, does--but the bad taste it leaves behind makes one wish that Mr. Li had just thrown up his hands and retired with a remake of Once Upon A Time In China.
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