Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2011)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Best movie ever!

Absolutely the worst movie.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I bought "Legend of the Fist" from Amazon simply because Shu Qi was in it. But prior to that, then I had no idea what the movie was about, so it was without any hopes or expectations that I sat down to watch the movie."Legend of the Fist" was actually a rather good enough action/martial arts movie spiced up with a fairly good storyline as well. Set during World War I in a Japanese occupied Shanghai, we follow the oppression of the Chinese and their rise to rebel against the Japanese. Mostly by the hands on a single man; Chen Zhen.The action sequences and fight scenes in the movie were really great, nicely choreographed and executed, which is a trademark of Donnie Yen. So if you are familiar with his work, then you know you are in for some great action and lots of adrenaline here. However, the last fight was a bit too cliché for my liking, it was like an old Bruce Lee movie. You had Donnie Yen taking on a whole dojo of Japanese singlehandedly. Then he comes up against the 'villain', the main bad guy, and gets a nasty beating, but of course he comes back and beats the villain to a pulp. It was exactly like the old Bruce Lee movies, and it has been done too many times already, been there, done that. So it was sort of a anti-climatic end to the movie - as you saw it coming a mile away."Legend of the Fist" has some pretty good actors and actresses on the cast list; you have Donnie Yen (in the lead role of Chen Zhen), Shu Qi (playing Kiki) and Anthony Wong (playing Liu Yutian). And the people in the movie did great jobs in bringing their characters to life on the screen.Having seen "Legend of the Fist" now, I sit here with the taste of 'was this a tribute to Bruce Lee' in my mouth. Because everything in this movie screamed Bruce Lee, and it seemed like a movie that might as well have starred the immortal Bruce Lee and not Donnie Yen. And I will not even go into the similarity between the Masked Fighter and Bruce Lee's Kato character... But regardless of this being the case or not, then "Legend of the Fist" was actually good entertainment both story-wise and also action-wise.

The good parts of this movie include using Shangahi in the 20's as the backdrop for the romance between sultry lounge singer Shu Qi and world weary veteran Donnie Yen at the Casablanca Club. Targeted at the Chinese market however, the movie marches very quickly into mindless homages to Bruce Lee and the all consuming xenophobia & victimization themes we've become familiar with in modern Chinese movies.The numerous racial epithets ("white skinned dogs", "f****g Japanese pigs) and Communist slogans about the Chinese people make for a tiresome soundtrack to the wire-fu and political conflict.Jet Li's version of the story "Fist of Legend" is said to be far better.

This film tries to be more than just an action movie but fails because of this. The plot is complex with a lot of main characters and a lot of relationships. But the story itself is absolutely boring. Another "bad Japan, good China" blabla from the Hongkong studios. After the "historical" introduction, which is as correct as the propaganda of the third Reich, you know everything about the plot you need to know. The rest is only added to make the plot more than a side-dish in a action movie. But the try to make a mixture of a action movie and a kind of a Drama or Thriller fails. The plot is boring and unnecessary and the Action is cut for the plot.So in the end there is neither a classical Actionmovie than a Thriller.Long story short i end: Boring movie, even for (eastern)Actionmovie fans.

Uneven yet entertaining routine… Donnie Yen is officially over-exposed. While his latest venture in Chen Zhen will not diminish his popularity, but the for movie lovers, this is just yet another more of the same. The fact that Jet Li made far superior prequel in 1994 (namely Fist of Legend) adds to the disappointment. Mr. Gordon Chan serves as producer seems to have forgotten how to make a film more even, while director Andrew Lau Is once again lost incoherence when without his counterpart Mak Siu Fai. Still, Legend of Fist is by no means a bad film, in fact, I find it quite entertaining. However, one would expect more with the current status of Yen and everyone else involved.One thing I cannot stop noticing is that Donnie Yen plays Chen Zhen like Ip Man. Not only did the final fight looks like Ip Man, but Yen acted with retrained in his character, a bit too much like the aforementioned icon. Just when he is required to do more overacting, Yen restrained to his stoned delivery. I remember watching Yen fights his way through to the big boss in Fist of Fury ATV series. His overacting created the atmosphere. While I am condoning overacting, as Yen is previously notorious for that, but I am disappointed that Yen cannot stray off his Ip Man image. I am also somewhat disappointed in the final fight scene with a class of students. In Jet Li's Fist of Legend, the scene was creatively filmed with overhead camera angles. Here, it is deadpan and the delivery is flat and how he cleaned up the room seems rather contrived and unclear. The final fight with the Japanese general is too routine and cliché to be anywhere near affecting.Antony Wong is wasted in a role where he adds next to nothing. Perhaps filmed at the same time as his venture into the Laughing Gor's role, Wong tries hard, but the script fails him. To say the least, I might admit that the best thing may well be Shu Qi. Her role is complicated and somehow she is able to pull it off. I wouldn't say that she dazzled the screen, but she was most certainly the most watchable character in the movie. Another problem is the lack of chemistry between Yen and Qi, which may well adds up to the unaffecting finale.All in all, Legend of the Fist is a decent entry into the martial arts arena, but it fails to have the same impact as Ip Man. The reason is simple, where Ip Man is a well directed film, Chen Zhen is not. At times the film feels too random, incoherent and at the end of the day rather uneven. Yen have physical presence and as well as musical talents, but his acting is still a long way from being accomplished. It seems as though that Yen is still riding on his waves of Ip Man's success. While it is not necessarily a bad thing, Chen Zhen is at the end of the day an iconic character made famous by both Bruce Lee, Jet Li and himself. To me, the donning of the mask (like Kato) should never have happened. Still, the Legend of the Fist is a decent film, some fine action scenes and more importantly people just can't get enough of Donnie Yen. Does it live up to expectations? Probably not. Does it brings the audience back to the cinemas? Yes. Maybe I am just a tad too demanding and after all, how can Donnie Yen do anything wrong...(Neo 2010)I rate it 6/10www.thehkneo.com