英雄 vs. 霍元甲

Somebody, a movie "critic" to be precise, gives Jet Li's Feareless a C+, and thinks it's not as good as Hero. To this ***clown I have the following to say.

To compare this movie to Hero is a joke. Period. Hero was just a toy box full of colorful but cheap-even-though-expensive-to-make eye candies; it doesn't have a soul. Besides, the hidden political agenda in Hero was so obvious to any thoughtful eyes that it would be surprising to see any Western liberal embrace it without any problem. Please enlighten me, then: "杀就是不杀 or To kill is not to kill" (the most infamous quote from the movie), what does that mean? So it's OK and even should be heralded as "heroic" if you kill millions for the purpose of building a "united" Kingdom? Now tell me how the millions in Taiwan would think about this, moron.

Now come back to the movie Fearless. It arguably has reached another level in the Kung Fu genre. Jet Li is a true warrior and pls don't confuse his fighting with all the hi-wire stuff from Matrix and its likes. In other words, his fists are furious and for real, boyz and girlz. If you think you'll enjoy watching some of the best fight sequences ever captured on film, go see this movie.

However the apex of this movie is not really about fight--it's just a way to get the butts of the average Joe's to the theatre. For the really curious and intellectually capable minds, it's a gem of biography recording the maturation of a soul that grew from so FEARFUL of its own power (body) to FEARLESS of anything including death itself. It also mimics Jet Li's own searching for an answer to the purpose of his life and power, both literally and figuratively. In the end he found Buddhism, which happens to close a full circle since his first movie, the Shao Lin Temple in which he played a monk hero--a true hero, by the way. How fitting it is, then, for this movie to be his last Kung Fu film--just don't pull a Michael Jordan on us, Jet! :)

Of course there's much more to this movie than a simple "soul searching" story. It happened at a time when the Chinese people were under foreign exploitation and suppression and in dare need of a spark, anything that could give them some hope, no matter how slim it was. Therefore the small self realization of a person coincided with the much bigger struggle of a whole nation. Unfortunately it's not easy to fully develop such a heavy theme in a short film, and Fearless could have presented a more compelling story with better development from this angle.

All in all this is a very well made film and would put shame to the likes of so-called Chinese 大片: 英雄，无极，夜宴，etc. As for a nation full of people like the aforementioned "film critic", I guess they can always find satisfaction in their very own Jackass! lol.

(murzin, 09/29/2006)