Fearless (Hong Kong/China 2006)

Fearless follows the life of Huo Yuanjia (Jet LI), founder of the Jing Wu Sports Federation. When Hou was little all he wanted was to follow in his fathers (Collin Chou) foot steps. Eventually, he did just that, by taking over over the school and responsibly that comes with it. Now a little older, and only a little wiser, Hou is on the quest to become number one in Tianjin. As his brash tirade continues, he adopts more students that want to one day be as powerful as he is. When one of Huo's disciples is beaten by a rival master, Huo takes it upon himself to get revenge and prove he's the true master...even if it means facing disrespect from the community and his peers. His actions eventually make him lose face and family. So he retreats to the country side to find solace. Soon he comes across a small village, where a local by the name of Moon (Betty Sun) takes him in and cares for him. Moon and her village rekindle the idea of simple honor within Huo. Huo gets his act together and returns to his town and the people that he left behind. He returns to find out there are a few foreign faces that would like to take him out of the game permanently.

The movie is loosely based on true events and life of Huo Yuanjia and his Jing Wu Sports Federation. Jet Li's performance seems a bit up and down, even for the content, but this is never enough to hurt the movie. It takes the fight direction of Yuen Woo-Ping, (who never lets you down) and a little CG coupled together to give you some very intense fight sequences. The direction from Ronny Yu does what it needs to do, and that means showing us the fighting, which he does really well. Also, due to some lofty production, we get some beautiful location shots as well. Other than that, the story moves along in such a way as to just get the viewer to the next fight, but not in a classic "beat'em up" type of way. There is a story here; it's just on fast forward most of the time. So it kind of puts a dent in the story telling aspect of things, but this still remains a very entertaining movie to watch. As everyone knows, this will be Jet Li's final movie about martial arts, which is too bad. There is something about Li and his performances in a period piece that can be described as magical. Legend of Wong Fei Hung, Hero, the OUATIC (Once Upon a Time in China) series, and of course his all time best movie ever: Fist of Legend are all examples of this, and he shines in each one. Fearless is a good movie that does it's best to keep company with the classics preceding it. As his final martial arts film, Jet Li couldn't have done a better job. (Converter)



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