Jet Li in Fearless
Fearless is a movie about the life of a martial artist from around the turn of the 20th century named Huo Yuan Jia. Jet Li, personally my favorite foreign actor and one of my favorite actors of any nationality, does a damn good job in my opinion. In Fearless, Jet Li's character definately lives up to the title of the movie as the fight scenes are classic Jet Li. Overall the movie falls short of greatness, but is still a must see for Jet Li fans and kung fu movie fans.
While not a very complicated or unpredictable plot, the history and character interaction makes up for it. The movie starts at the end, with Yuan Jia taking four fighters on back to back (a boxer, a lancer, a swordsman and the Japanese champion... in that order if my memory serves). After defeating the first three it flashes back to a few years prior when the young Yuan Jia wishes to gain the title of the best fighter in his area of China.
Although I liked the movie alot, I do have to give it just a rating of very good, but not great. I read somewhere that a good 40 minutes and a character played by Michelle Yeoh (of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon fame) were both cut from the film at the last minute. That could explain how it seemed to me that the movie would have been better if it had been longer and seemed like some scenes just didn't flow into each other well.
I don't have any complaints at all when it comes to the fight scenes. As a matter of fact the culminating fight in the first half of the movie was one of the more entertaining fights I've seen in a movie in a while (and I've been watching alot of kung fu movies lately). Its the in between scenes that were a bit lacking. One that stuck out to me immediately was a scene where the main character seems to aimlessly wander off in remorse over the death of an opponant. It basically just flashed by and didn't nearly do the justice I thought that kind of life changing event. There were a few scenes that just didn't have the depth I would have liked to see. I wasn't impressed by the child actors either, but when do you ever really ever see good acting with kids?
It all ends on a very good note. I don't want to ruin the ending completely, but its a solid one. The ending takes me from a B+ to an A- overall, bringin in some of the depth and a moral to the story, showing that the inferred growth that took place while he was on hiatus in the countryside was real. I can't help from comparing this to the yardstick martial arts movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That is in my opinion the best martial arts movie I have ever seen, an A+ easily. This is an A-, definately good and a must see, but not a favorite. Its sad too, it could have been better.