Saw this movie earlier last week. You can watch the trailer by clicking on the Official Site link below and then Media > Trailers. The movie I thought was only decent. The storyline was cliché where a kung fu expert only learns that being winning is not always the greatest, and sometimes losing is the ultimate move. The martial arts was also a bit weak, but I guess that was trying to show 霍元甲 (Huo Yuan Jia) was more human-like, then the normally invincible Jet Li.
Official Site
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Amazon.com DVD
Spoilers: (Show)
The movie made me think of Fist of Legend because apparently 霍元甲 (Huo Yuan Jia) is the founder of 精武門 (Jing Wu Men) and In Fist of Fury, Jet Li plays the role of 陳真 (Chen Zhen), a student of 霍元甲 who was studying in Japan. He learnt about about his master’s death, and immediately returned to Shanghai only to discovered his master was poisoned. This sort of spoils the ending of the movie for you, but that’s what you get for reading spoilers right?
霍元甲 apparently was a real person and so is his school: 精武門. However, I don’t know if 陳真 is a real person or not, or if it was ficiticious story created by Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury. In this movie, Chen Zhen wasn’t really mentioned and they only briefly touched upon his school.
The story is about how 霍元甲 came about to learn kung fu, how he suffered from his arrogance, and how he was able to raise his head once again with the help of his friend. At this time, the european imperalists have found their way to China and so has Japan. They were making fun of the Chinese for being weak and no one was able to defeat their warrior. 霍元甲 showed them the true meaning of strength and even accepted a challenge for 4 on 1 where it was the best British, French, German, and Japanese warrior against 霍元甲. Of course you already know the ending.
