Watch Once Upon a Time in China For Free

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Whatever flaws may be technically possible to dissect in this admirable epic, its thematic quality is without dispute. It has heart, logic, a lighthearted and yet probing respect for its venerable past, and while the violence is still way over the top, its presentation of ideas ultimately redeems it excess in this area. While director Tsui Hark may or may not have intended to present this struggle between ideas and force to be this meaningful or open to interpretation from such various viewpoints, this is nonetheless the case.This is the story of Wong Fei-Hung, a great doctor, martial arts instructor, and Confucian. Naturally, it is a glamorized version of a real man and his actual life. But there is a feeling that what we see on film, for all its splendid choreography and the slapstick antics of its sometimes two-dimensional characters as the supporting cast and its often one dimensional villains, is deeply rooted in authentic detail regarding the texture of Chinese society and the truth of competing Western and Eastern cultural aspirations.One could easily conclude that ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA takes on too much and tries to do too much with its themes and multi-layered plot and story. But, quite frankly, that is what I find most appealing and heroic about its aesthetic stance. That Wong Fei-Hung is a National Folk Hero comparable to Muhammud Ali and Albert Schweitzer is without question. He appears in history as a man of considerable ability and skills and I was surprised to discover that over a hundred films have been made about him from the early days of cinema until now. Therefore it is easy to see how he has evolved from a simple man wishing in his own way to practice healing and the martial arts with a philanthropic spirit to a figure of myth and legend.I found Jet Li to be quite excellent as this modern era version of Wong Fei-Hung. I noted that this film, among its sequels, is primarily responsible for what is considered a Golden Age in Hong Kong cinema. I can easily see why. It strains at the conventions of the traditional Kung Fu film and bursts through such bonds to leave something quite new in its wake. The fight scenes are all wonderful in their blood curdling awful symmetrical splendor and the ending is like something out of a silent Buster Keaton movie. Rosamund Kwan's portrayal of Aunt 13 is graceful and beautiful as she presents to us a lady of learning, class and distinction. She, in her own way, comes across as much a heroine as Wong-Fei-Hung does a culture hero in this epic, helping him to understand the attractions of Western knowledge and technology as well as the perils of its inclination towards destruction and death in the politics of the time.I found it a great thrill and honor to view a film that adventures to compare and contrast the customs and manners of Western and Eastern societies much as Confucius would. There is a dazzling showcase of many of the arts and modes of knowledge of China in this piece to festoon and decorate the martial valor on display. Besides the visceral enjoyment of the extravagant fighting, one also gets the feeling one is visually learning a lot about China as a milieu in many respects. Much like the first IP MAN with Donnie Yen, this film purports to be a martial arts flick, but proves itself to be so much more. Perhaps, as Wong Fei-Hung suggests at the end, we are standing on gold right here.

Jet Li's historical epic is one of the films which ushered in a new wave of Chinese cinema, with films containing plots that were usually historical and action that was usually enhanced by the use of plentiful wire work. Wire work, for those who don't know, involves the actors flying through the air as if weightless, a good example being CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. Thankfully, this movie is far less pretentious than that and also less serious, and as a result it's a lot more entertaining. Typical Chinese comedy mingles with a somewhat racist plot in which Jet Li and his associates must battle to keep foreigners from invading China.It's a patriotic film with an epic feel to it, made good thanks to Tsui Hark's assured direction and lots of excellent photography. The acting is still on the level you would expect from a Chinese movie, but nods go to Yuen Biao and Yan Sai-kwoon who both do really well in their respective parts. Jet Li himself is quite quiet in the movie, but his fighting abilities are second-to-none and he's just as entertaining to watch here as in something like KISS OF THE DRAGON. Rosamund Kwan has the thankless role of the token female but she's actually very good as well.The serious aspects of this story – lots of innocent people getting mercilessly gunned down, for example – sit oddly with the more traditional kung fu fighting, but that's not too much of a problem. 99% of fans will be wanting to see this for the martial arts and they don't disappoint, with tons of incredible jumps, kicks and prop-breaking. Li's battle with Yan Sai-kwoon at the end is tremendous fun whilst Biao puts in some strong work as always. Although it has a little bit of a 'vanilla' feel for it, for the most part this is a well-put-together movie that was successful enough to spawn endless sequels.

First thing about this movie are a few criticisms. It is not a bad movie; in fact as it comes to the end the action heats up so much that you are left on the edge of your seat. Unfortunately there are a few things that hold this movie back from being great. Firstly it is quite long: there are a lot of scenes in the movie that really don't need to be there and you start to become agitated and bored waiting for the real action to heat up. Then there are the characters: they are all the same. As such it is very difficult to work out who is who, though by the end of the movie I was able to tell. Finally I find that the structure of the movie was quite bad. It was as if bits had been cut out to shorten it even more and thus I had difficulty following what was going on. Still, the action in the movie is stunning, and by the end of the movie you do have an idea of the plot. Then again, Hong Kong action movies were never known for their plots but more for their stunning martial arts sequences. This movie delivers though.The time is China at the turn of the century, possibly even earlier in the 19th Century, but it is a time when the United States had a stake in China and had fortresses there along with other European countries. This puts it somewhere between 1870 to 1900, though the weapons suggest that it is earlier rather than later. The movie is based around a dojo run by Heung (Jet Li), a Kungfu master. Heung is fighting against the Sheueng gang and the authorities to keep his dojo running, but everything seems to be going against him. There are salesmen wandering around selling passages to America, the Golden Mountain where people go to get exceedingly rich. What is really happening is that these salesmen sell the Chinese to the Americans as slave labour and take their money as well. The Sheueng gang is also involved in this as they are kidnapping Chinese women and selling them to the Americans.This movie is at the end of the Chinese empire. The Western nations have entered and carved it up and the Emperor is powerless. In fact China is sitting on the edge of revolution. Justice does not exist for the Chinese as they are treated as second class citizens, and it seems that China now exists for the Westerners. They are in China for the trade, but they own the trading cartels and the Chinese now exist around them. They have no stake in the Westerner's business and are kept in order by a militia run by the British.This is a time of hopelessness for the Chinese. They have lost all autonomy, and there is no justice for the meek. Heung's Dojo is burnt down by the rival gang and nobody offers themselves as a witness. When he is ripped off by a Fortune God, nobody is interested in helping him, and he is the one to blame for the results. Then there is the stage play that is ruined by an ambush by the rival gang. When the fighting erupts, the Americans shoot everybody indiscriminately. It is a crime simply to be Chinese. Though one learns later that it is because the Americans are working with this rival gang and it was a setup.Once Upon a Time in China is a very anti-Western film. In this movie, it is the westerners who are the bad guys, especially the Americans. In this movie, we sympathise with the Chinese and begin to hate the westerners because they are unjust and torture the original inhabitants of the land. The movie is also anti-imperialism for it attacks the imperialist nature of the western powers. The word western is always spoken with venom in the mouth of the people because they have invaded and taken their land.This movie is awesome when the fights really start up. Though it is slow at the start, once the action begins this movie speeds up and drags you in. It is the action that makes this movie what it is. The action is intense and awesome, and with typical Tsui Hark style, there is one fantasy element, and that is Iron Robe, the martial artist whose stomach is like iron and sword blows simply bounce off of it.

I'll admit I only watched 15 minutes or so cause I realized if I went straight to the box office I'd probably get a refund. it's a "goofy" very low budget movie which, if you're not seeing it for free, should be viewed from a seat in which you can make a quick getaway for a refund. You'll have to be a real Jet Li or Hong Kong completest to stick it out for any length of time, I think.I saw it on a program of "sergio Leone influences hong Kong" double feature and the other film from 2006 called "exile" was the HK submission for the Oscars and it was really excellent.my 10th line: and they said "hong Kong Odyssey 2002 was "stupid""!! I enjoyed that movie but this one, no thanks!oh and I suppose I need to explain at LACMA (LA county museum of art) in this instance the 2 films on the program had separate admission charges, the first one (exile) was $5 and such a deal the 2nd, this one, was 10 bucks and I felt anything else I might spend 10 bucks on, say, a baja fresh burrito, would be a better use of the money. mmm mm good!