of course, jet li has made many cool films. another good one, and in a totally different style to fong sai yuk, is fist of legend, a remake of bruce lee's fist of fury. the fighting in this is so quick and stylish, but is the more realistic style, without wires (well, without the jumps anyway). but if you want to see some very cool moves that will inspire you to practise (for example where someone comes at you with a jumping side kick and you just punch their foot, or when a lot of people are doing flying sideways cyclone kicks (i can't remember what these are called - butterfly kicks?) and you land a high front kick to their stomach...) and jet beat up lots of people simultaneously in a short period of time (including a cool fight with the japanese gang at the start where jet li disables each of them by dislocating their joints, and their teacher (who is cool, and does not approve of the japanese students behaviour) has to relocate all their joints) then this is film to watch. different in the end to the bruce lee film, as jet lives, whereas bruce famously fights to the death. jet actually produced this film himself after getting feedback from fans that they didn't like the fights in romeo must die - too heavy on the effects, so he made fist of legend. unfortunately (and amazingly), it didn't do very well at the box office (but why - it's so good!) and sadly, jet li closed down his production company.
of course, the once upon a time in china (OUATIC) series are very very good, with jet li playing the role of chinese legend wong fei hung in parts I, II, III and 'OUATIC and america'. slightly confused by the relationship between him and his aunt, aunt yee (who is pretty cool) as they are together, and aunt yee tells him not to call her aunt...but as i said, very cool films, with lots of mad fights, and sometimes quite funny as well (although nowhere near as funny as fong sai yuk). of particular note is a character in OUATIC III called club foot (he also plays a character in OUATICAA) who is very cool - a mad spinning gymnastic style - you know the event (i think called the pommel horse) where you are on the horsey type apparatus with the two handles, and you rotate very quickly with your legs in a split position - can also be done as part of the floor exercise - well club foot does it here, and then jumps very high into the air, and runs sideways on walls, fighting wong fei hung. it is a very very cool fight, possibly the best in the whole OUATIC series.
and then there are the shaolin temple films. you cannot believe how young jet li looks in these films! i already mentioned shaolin temple 1, the best of the three with a large cast of supremely talented martial artists (the scene where a young jet looks over the wall into the training ground to see dozens of monks all incredibly proficient with three section staffs, spears, broadswords, and my favorite chain whips, has to be seen) and jet also displaying his weaponary and barehand skill. the music is really cool as well, and will have you singing it to yourself when the film has finished (shaolin, da da da da daaaaa da daaa, well, it doesn't really translate but trust me, it's cool). shaolin temple 2 : kids from shaolin is probably the weakest of the three, as it has too many kids in it - having said that though, they all have very cool hairstyles and could easily kick my head in. ends in a massive fight that lasts for ages though, to make up for the comparitive lack of fights throughout the rest of the film. shaolin temple three is better - with jet li showing us some praying mantis style, and of course a massive fight at the end. these films, i think were filmed in china or somewhere that looks like it and are very impressive to watch.
other films of note are the master (quite good, except for the two street urchins that pester jet and gary daniels' mullet and 80's grey suit with shoulder pads), born to defend (jet's directorial debut - didn't do too well, but i liked the film - the fight scenes are very realistic and well choreographed, but he should have killed the guy at the end, after all, jets very close lady friend and old senior in the war had both just died cos of this guilo, and jet doesn't kill him!). the hitman and the tai chi master are also pretty fine films, worthy of buying.
anyway, enough gabbin' - here are some pictures from various jet li films |
