I am a little reluctant to use this trailer from Dragon Dynasty because it really doesn’t give you the best synopsis of the film from action director Corey Yuen and stars Jet Li. This revamped trailer plays up a lot more of the action and leaves out some of the subtext of the story at heart, along with cutting out another pivotal character who happens to be a strong, female lead Josephine Siao who plays the mother of Fong Sai Yuk, Miu Chui-fa. Also gone is the comedy, slap stick that happens in the movie which is replaced with more dramatic music and fighting. Sigh, I hate when trailers are misleading, but oh well, this is certainly a phenomenal martial arts movie.
The story is set during the Manchu dynasty in Canton. Li plays Sai Yuk, a courageous young martial-arts expert who is the very best around, as can be seen in the opening kung-fu matches. Those he beats swear vengeance, and a chaotic fight breaks out. All involved, including Sai Yuk, end up in jail. Sai Yuk’s father is most displeased. Later Tiger Lei, a local official, decrees that whoever can beat his wife, Siu Huan, in a match will win his daughter Ting Ting’s hand in marriage. Lei then builds an enormous scaffold on which the combatants will fight; the first fighter to touch the ground loses. Sai Yuk gladly takes on the feisty mother. Unfortunately, after seeing the homely woman he takes to be Ting Ting, Sai Yuk decides to lose the fight. His own wild and crazy mother is mortified by the potential loss of face. To save the family honor, she masquerades as Sai Yuk’s brother, Tai Yuk, and beats the tar out of Siu Huan. Unfortunately, Lei insists that the victor honor the marriage contract, something complicated by the fact that Siu Huan finds Tai Yuk irresistibly handsome. While that mess gets untangled, another brews when the family learns that patriarch Fong is a member of the notorious rebel Red Lotus Society, a group the governor has vowed to destroy with the help of Tiger Lei. Back again to the romantic travails, after much confusion, Sai Yuk and Ting Ting agree to marry and begin preparing for their wedding. They hold a pre-nuptial feast, one that the governor attends. Chop-socky chaos ensues resulting in the accidental shooting of Siu Huan and the capture of the elder Fong. This leaves the son to figure out how to save his father from losing his head to the vengeful official. The story’s climax involves a major confrontation between the governor, Sai-Yuk, his lady, his crazy mother, and a town full of irate citizens. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
Thank god for RottenTomatoes and their detailed synopsis on the plot. Just reading this and then watching updated trailer gives off the vibe of two wildly different movies. Granted the story is about the building of the legend that is Fong Sai Yuk, the man who spurred on a revolution and the story continues on to a sequel, but it can be misleading to think this is just a flat out, super serious movie. The true nature of the film is really an epic martial arts film, mixed with some comedic elements to create something unique to Chinese cinema. You are getting stunning action choreography along with slap stick comedy elements by both Jet Li and Josephine Siao. Interesting to see these elements blended together in one fantastic movie.
While the comedy is sprinkled into the film, all developed wonderfully in the plot and characters, the real reason you want to watch this flick is for the martial arts action scenes alone. If you cut out everything from the movie but the fight scenes, you would still have a better action movie than most full length features. Every fight scenes is different than the next and in some cases, better than the previous one. With a movie that incorporates the whole wire-fu and having characters able to defy the laws of physics and gravity, it doesn’t come off too cheesy, just cheesy enough. But the impact of the fight scenes is what makes this flick. You have one scene where Li and Ting Ting’s mother battle one another on top of the shoulders and heads of the people in the crowd, never wanting to touch the ground. It’s a choreographers nightmare in having to block that out and plan for it, but it comes off so smoothly that you are excited to watch what happens. Then you have another scenes where Li and the main villain meet for the first time and fight one another with various staffs, able to move at such a quick pace that you think the fight is sped up. Every fight is stunning in their own rights.
Fong Sai Yuk certainly set the stage for more Chinese films that mimic the fight choreography, basically saturating the films in ridiculous combat sequences that sometimes work and sometimes feel cheap and cheesy. Yuen managed to find a way to incorporate this high wire combat, but also presented us with a deep, compelling story that stops the action from taking you out of the moment, even if there is a guy kicking another guy for like a solid minute before ever touching the ground. Jet Li is in his prime here and is ridiculously fast in his fighting styles. Josephine Siao even brings a feminine touch to the action as well with her more fluid fight scenes. She can certainly hold her own on screen with Li and they bring a great dynamic to the movie. If you are fascinated with Jet Li’s work, then this is a good place to start and branch out to his early work as well.