Genre: Drama, Martial Arts, Detective
Tag Line: -
Running Time: 2 Hour 5 Minutes
Casts: Donnie Yen, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Tang Wei, Jimmy Wang Yu, Kara Hui
Directed by: Peter Ho-Sun Chan
Produced by: Peter Ho-Sun Chan
Story:
It is 1917 Yunnan and Liu Jinxi (Donnie Yen) lives a quiet life with his wife Yu (Tang Wei) and their two young sons Xiaotian and Fangzheng. Liu runs a paper mill and the village prospers. One day, two fugitives arrive demanding money and after a long fight with Liu, end up dead. The bigger one is identified as an especially powerful fighter. Liu becomes a local hero but detective Xu Baijiu (Kaneshiro Takeshi), an expert in physiology and pressure points, is puzzled how a seemingly ordinary man like Liu was able to defeat two hardened fugitives. Liu finally tells Xu that he is actually a convicted killer and spent 10 years in Jingzhou prison. However Xu, who notices that Liu is surrounded by a powerful qi force-field, is still suspicious, and when an associate (Jiang Wu) reports from his investigations in Jingzhou, he realizes Liu is actually Tang Long, second-in-command of the murderous 72 Demons gang and the favourite son of its Tangut leader (Jimmy Wang) and his wife (Kara Hui).
Written by Official Site
Review:
Set in 1917, on the cusp of China’s transition from monarchy to republic, Wu Xia depicts the internal moral struggles of a detective and a paper-maker who may be a renegade mass murderer. Unfolding like a noir mystery in which Sherlock Holmes meets CSI. It represents Chan’s ambition to bridge the gap between Chinese and international tastes by giving a modern spin to the genre, while paying homage to the golden age of Hong Kong martial arts films through the special appearances of legendary action star Jimmy Wang Yu and Kara Hui.
Wu Xia begins, surprisingly enough, as a detective story. When a pair of thugs try to rob the general store of a remote town they are fought off by local paper maker Liu Jinxi (Donnie Yen) and killed in the battle. The subsequent investigation - led by quirky detective Xu Baiju (Takeshi Kaneshiro) obsessed with solving crimes by observation of minute details and a rich knowledge of human physiology (it's really a CSI and Holmes wannabe) - quickly confirms who the dead men are and how they died but while the town is busy proclaiming the humble paper maker a local hero our detective becomes convinced that there must be more to him than meets the eye. For no untrained man could have dispatched two hardened criminals in such fashion.
And so the first half of Wu Xia plays out not as a martial arts epic nor as a meditation on honor - the two prevalent themes in Wu Xia films - but as a heady game of cat and mouse with Xu playing out theories of who Liu might really be. He's right, of course, there's more at play here than meets the eye and before all is said and done a secret society of assassins comes out of the woodwork to wreak havoc in this once peaceful town. The ending is surprising enough, because how the super enemy defeated is funny and comedic (being struck by lightning??? What the??? - it's because I prefer better fight rather than lightning stuff).
Overall, you can say it's good or bad, but for me, it is not that bad. Even Wu Xia is leaning significantly more towards drama than martial arts with comedy flavour in it, you still can see a beautifully photographed scenery, the script is engaging, the characters interesting and, when the action finally comes into play, the action is inventive and high energy.
Because Chan seems surprisingly disinterested in delivering any sort of conventional take on what most fans of the Wu Xia genre would expect from a film of that title. Which isn't to say that it's not good - because it is, very - but expectations may be skewed a bit in the wrong direction.
Good points:
- Still and always great martial arts by Donnie Yen
- The appearance of Takeshi Kaneshiro add something good to the movie
- It's not serious, a bit comedy and mixed CSI-Holmes bring something new to this genre
- Beautiful scenery towards the movie
Bad points:
- How the super enemy defeated is a bit ridiculous
Rating: 7.5/10.0
Wu Xia begins, surprisingly enough, as a detective story. When a pair of thugs try to rob the general store of a remote town they are fought off by local paper maker Liu Jinxi (Donnie Yen) and killed in the battle. The subsequent investigation - led by quirky detective Xu Baiju (Takeshi Kaneshiro) obsessed with solving crimes by observation of minute details and a rich knowledge of human physiology (it's really a CSI and Holmes wannabe) - quickly confirms who the dead men are and how they died but while the town is busy proclaiming the humble paper maker a local hero our detective becomes convinced that there must be more to him than meets the eye. For no untrained man could have dispatched two hardened criminals in such fashion.
And so the first half of Wu Xia plays out not as a martial arts epic nor as a meditation on honor - the two prevalent themes in Wu Xia films - but as a heady game of cat and mouse with Xu playing out theories of who Liu might really be. He's right, of course, there's more at play here than meets the eye and before all is said and done a secret society of assassins comes out of the woodwork to wreak havoc in this once peaceful town. The ending is surprising enough, because how the super enemy defeated is funny and comedic (being struck by lightning??? What the??? - it's because I prefer better fight rather than lightning stuff).
Overall, you can say it's good or bad, but for me, it is not that bad. Even Wu Xia is leaning significantly more towards drama than martial arts with comedy flavour in it, you still can see a beautifully photographed scenery, the script is engaging, the characters interesting and, when the action finally comes into play, the action is inventive and high energy.
Because Chan seems surprisingly disinterested in delivering any sort of conventional take on what most fans of the Wu Xia genre would expect from a film of that title. Which isn't to say that it's not good - because it is, very - but expectations may be skewed a bit in the wrong direction.
Good points:
- Still and always great martial arts by Donnie Yen
- The appearance of Takeshi Kaneshiro add something good to the movie
- It's not serious, a bit comedy and mixed CSI-Holmes bring something new to this genre
- Beautiful scenery towards the movie
Bad points:
- How the super enemy defeated is a bit ridiculous
Rating: 7.5/10.0
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