Jet Li's Fearless (1 Viewer)

[George_W_K]

I just caught a trailer for this on Yahoo! Movies. Towards the end it says, "Jet Li, in his final martial arts epic." Does anyone know the true meaning of this? I'm taking it as no more films like "Hero", "Once Upon a Time In China", etc. But, that doesn't mean he's retiring from doing martial arts in his movies, does it?

 

[Chris Atkins]

I caught this trailer in front of X3. Looks intriguing.

 

[ChrisBEA]

I recall reading that Li was retiring from martial arts, but not acting. He wanted to focus on becoming a better actor. It will be interesting to see if this actually becomes a reality.

 

[Nick C.]

He's retiring only from wushu films, so he's still doing 'traditional' action pics, as evidenced by his next film with fellow action star Jason Stratham


Perhaps a more expert source can tell us how kung fu and wushu differ. I'm guessing films featuring hand to hand combat like the "Once Upon a Time" series, "Fearless" and "The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk" are categorized as wushu, while kung fu films fall more into swordsplay like "Hero" and "Swordsman II"?

 

[Ryan L. Bisasky]

i wonder, during a trailer that i saw last night with District B13, I noticed there was some dialogue in english, so are the bastards at universal/rouge pictures going to dub this into english instead of leaving it the way it was subtitled.

 

[Kirk Tsai]

Wushu directly means martial arts. As a general term, kung fu does not mean martial arts, but more akin to "work" or "skill." However, I have not heard of this distinction in movies before. I can only assume that Li's use of "wushu" means a smaller subcategory, just as "action" is a huge umbrella that includes everything from Li's period films to MI:3. FWIW, the distinction that I have often heard is made between "wuxia" and "wuda" films.

From what I recall, Fearless has a few lines in English and Japanese, in addition to Chinese. I have not seen this trailer, so I don't know if the movie is dubbed.

 

[David Nguyen]

Ryan: I saw this on DVD, and IIRC, those scenes from the trailer are merely discussions among European businessmen and a Japanese man about holding a tournament in which they can bet money. The rest of the movie is subtitled (at least on DVD.)

 

[Ryan L. Bisasky]

i didn't know there was even a version of this movie that was subtitled... link?

 

[David Nguyen]

Ryan: The only version I can find with English subtitles are the DVDs currently on Ebay. They look like the copy I rented from my local video store, and the specs match up (DTS, subtitles.)

 

[Ryan L. Bisasky]

they're prboably boots since I don't think any officially released version with subtitles has been released. they're probably fan made.

 

[Chris_Morris]

Jet Li will not be making anymore "philosophical" movies with traditional Wushu (OUATIC, Fong Sai Yuk, Hero, Tai Chi Master, etc.) In those movies, notice the style of fighting (lots of jumping, weapons, using normal objects as weapons, flying with wires, posing and stances, etc.) that is what he is getting away from and will still do action/fighting movies. He is going to concentrate on upping his acting ability and believes that there is nothing more in the sport of Wushu that he can show.

As for Wushu, it is a sport, the national sport of China. It is a specific style/discipline of kung-fu, just as Bujinkan Taijuitsu is a specific style/discipline of karate. An analogy of the difference between Wushu and kung-fu would be kung-fu=Motion Pictures/Wushu=action movie. The word karate, is just the Japanese version of kung-fu, both are just the main group that all styles belong to.

The characters that make up the word Wushu, when broken down completely, mean "The Art of Not Fighting"

I haven't made a purchase from DDDhouse in a while, but this will be on its way the day they list a version with English subtitles, the current version only has Chinese subs. I hope the trailer is still playing with X3 when I go see it Monday.

 

[Kirk Tsai]

I'm curious to how you came to this definition. For me, "wu" would mean something like "martial" or "fighting"; "shu" would mean "skill" or "art."

The DVD I rented was an official copy, and did not have English subtitles. There are also several featurettes on the film, which I hope to see on the eventual region 1 release.

 

[Matthew Brown]

I thouroghly enjoyed this movie but I think the projectionist mixed the reels up. When Jet Li is told that the Japanese fighter would like to meet with him before the match it jumped back in time to when he was being taken care of by Moon and her grandmother. Is this how the movie really is? I noticed that there were no transitions and it was a straight cut and it had the circles in the top right corner before this part played.

Overall, a really good movie. I was planning a full review but I don't think I saw it correctly yet. My only critisism is that the fights used a little too much CGI. For a story based on reality, it took me out of it a bit. I guess it would be like watching a movie about George Washington fighting the revolutionary war like he was in the Matrix.

Thanks,
Matt

 

[ThomasC]

CG? The only thing I noticed was slo-mo and sped-up film, both of which annoyed me. I don't think there was any CG in the fight sequences, at least.

I thought it was a really good movie as well, the only big negatives being the small amount of sped-up film and some of the slo-mo stuff. It was definitely better than I thought it would be, and I had good expectations going into the film.

 

[ChrisBEA]

Loved it! Thought it was a wonderful film, great fights, entertaining characters, good story. Looking forward to owning it.

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

http://www.mandarintools.com/cgi-bin...whole&audio=on

Trad. Simp. Pinyin English
武術
武术
wǔ shù

wushu, martial arts such as shadow-boxing, swordplay, etc.

 

[Citizen87645]

I enjoyed it too. The speed manipulation was tolerable to me. I also was glad they showed some restraint in the sentimental moments, which is often not the case.

So...I'm thinking Fist of Fury/Fist of Legend was inspired by this story?IIRC the name of the school is Jing Wu and I definitely know the master was killed by a Japanese fighter in a match where his asthma flared up but it was actually a poisoning. Of course the "Fist" films go entirely opposite of the "no vengeance" message of "Fearless."

 

[Matthew Brown]

I called the theater and nobody else noticed that the film was out of order. I asked for free tickets to see it again but they said I had to be there in person. I don't have time to see it again so I probably won't go in person.

I noticed some of the weapons being CGI and maybe the way the film was sped up or slowed down reminded me of CGI. Some of the fights on the towers looked just a little artificial to me.

The film originally had Michelle Yeoh in it and her part was cut from the film entirely. I would love to see a director's cut of this some day. It probably slowed the movie down a lot but it would be great to see more of the story.

A releative of Huo Yuanjia had wanted this movie banned because they didn't feel that the movie accurately protrayed how things were and was disrespectful. I thought the character was protrayed with great integrity and Jet Li gave one of his best performances.

Matt

 

[Patrick Sun]

I thought it was okay, not as gripping as I had hoped. Other problems were a soggy 2nd act, and the lead character didn't feel as fully realized as I had hoped before the film moved into the mid-section. The fights were good, but not as engrossing because of the use of jump snips (where they would take out a few frames here and there during the action sequences to force a cinematic style to the fights at times). It's still worth a matinee viewing if you are a fan of Jet Li, or the genre.

I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.

 

[Tim Glover]

Finally got to see this last night on HD DVD. Spectacular image btw.

Good, solid film. These kinds of films haven't really been my thing. Well, that was before I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers, & Hero. Those were terrific. Crouching Tiger was my favorite film for 2000.

At first, I wasn't really getting into it that much but found myself getting absorbed. I knew it was effective when I really wasn't caring too much for Jet Li's character until he did some soul searching.....Some good action and a meaningful story.

Kind of sad that is supposed to be his last martial arts film. He doesn't look his age of 43 but I'm sure all this stuff has taken it's toll.

Glad I saw this.

8/10.