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Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

A very unfocused film with too many messages and not enough entertainment. The first half is okay. It starts out as your standard kung-fu flick with the usual terrific on-screen fighting as expected from Jet Li. But about halfway there is this boring 25 minute stretch with zero action which alone ruins the pacing. The second half is like an entirely different film with an unrelated plot and ludicrous turns of events. By the time they get to the fighting in the third act it is underwhelming because the first half had all the good stuff. Jet Li's acting doesn't add much to his character nor to the story. It feels like he phones it in which makes sense considering this was his supposed to be his last wuxia film. Good production values but overall a disappointing martial arts experience. Everything here was done better in Once Upon a Time in China and Ip Man.

Fearless is a film that was made in Hong Kong in September 2006 by the director Ronny Yu, it is also known as Huo Yuanjia in Chinese. The genre for this film is considered to be martial arts, action, and has a running time of 104 minutes. Staring Jet Li, Shido Nakamura and Collin Chou. The film is set in Shanghai in 1910 the time of the late Qing Dynasty and is based on the life of Huo Yuanjia, who is a famous martial artist known for his wushu. Jet Li an actor who is well known for his roles in martial arts films plays the main character Huo Yuanjia an arrogant, smug and determined wushu fighter, who then suffers a great loss and finally learns the true art of wushu. The film begins with Huo Yuanjia fighting in his last competition. In these fights Huo shows his competitors respect by bowing to them and refusing to kill them. Huo as a boy is told that wushu is about restraint and discipline and should be used to help others. As ages Huo gets many challenges and wins them all. He is driven to win all of his fights yet he seems to forget his father's teachings that wushu is not only about winning but also, respect, mercy and restraint. Huo signs death waivers before he fights and becomes popular and is named one of the best fighters in Tianjin. Huo is fixated with being a champion and has won 38 fights without loss, he is self-obsessed and thinks that master Qin has insults him directly. Huo's wise childhood friend Nong attempts to stop him but Huo ignores his pleas and challenges master Qin at his birthday party. Huo with no mercy kills Qin, then Qin's godson seeks revenge on Huo by murdering Huos' young daughter in her sleep. Qin's godson ends his own life before Huo can avenge his daughter. Only after his daughter is murdered does Huo learn that Qin was not insulting him. With this, Huo feels broken and ashamed and leaves his home. Much time passes and Huo is found lifeless by blind women Yueci. Huo lives rurally in a beautiful peaceful village with Yueci, who shows Him kindness, and teaches him to love and live again. This results in Huo changing the way that he has been looking at the art of wushu and how he has treated his friends and opponents in the past. Huo himself has transformed and become more genuine as he now understands what his father had been trying to teach him. Huo returns home to pay his respects. Huo enters his next fight with respect and mercy for his opponent saving his opponent from death and winning the fight, with the admiration of his opponent. With the help of Nong, Huo opens Chin Woo Athletic Association in Shanghai. Huo enters his last competition where he fights Japanese champion Tanaka. Tanaka's manger arranged to poison Huo's drink, Huo realises but it is too late, so he chooses to finish the fight. Huo's friends wanted to take revenge but he tells them he doesn't want revenge. Huo almost kills Tanaka but he takes mercy on Tanaka and stops himself and collapses. Tanaka announces that Huo is the champion and won the fight, Huo dies with the respect and support of his people. The plot was like many martial arts films, Huo was a ruthless man determined to win, it was not until he experienced the loss of his daughter, and had some time away from fighting did he rediscover himself and truly learn what wushu was about. He learnt that he could use his skills to teach the people of his country to stand united with the rule book of the Chin Woo Athletic Association he placed a focus on the Physical, mind, spirit, the exchange of knowledge and respect. The foundation of the Chin Woo Athletic Association brought about social change. Fearless had many fighting scenes in it which will keep an audience on the edge of their seat; the plot was easy to follow and I believe that Jet Li played the part very well. The film to me did seem to be a little rushed considering the short time frame for all of the events that occurred, yet I think Ronny still told the story well. The lighting, camera and music were all very well done with modern and bright colours being used, and traditional Chinese drums in some of the fighting scenes which all gave the film a very nice effect making some events more easily interpreted. The shooting of the fighting scenes were at close range and a slower pace so that the audience could view all of the special moves applied by the champions. The film was emotional with brutal fighting, the death of Huo's daughter and lastly his murder at the end. I enjoyed watching this film as I believe it was exciting and realistic. I would highly recommend it to those who are fans of Jet Li and enjoy a good story rather than just mindless fighting without purpose. I think what is special about this film is that it is based on the life of Huo Yuanjia and how his contribution to wushu altered the Chinese and transformed the practice of martial arts.

The grandeur and the simplicity of this martial arts epic root it in its history and milieu, and makes of the old China a tale that is at once a powerful myth and an expression of love for the simple truths evident in the hearts and minds of decent people, just as the greatest Hollywood Westerns showed America in an exemplary light as the product of the epic strivings of their emerging nation. Gunfight duels or wushu contests, the only difference is that China was then striving to re-emerge from foreign domination. Probably - pace the noble efforts of John Ford - this Chinese martial-arts film can praise and raise up for admiration and emulation its own heroes with a better conscience than the American western, since in the latter the victims are objectively the native Americans, who are only infrequently and Pyrrhically shown besting the white man - but never ultimately prevailing.I feel sure there is also a feeling in this film for the samurai epics of Kurosawa; there is in 'Seven Samurai' (for instance) something of the same transformative value as shown in the - at first grudging - service of swaggering but down-on-their-luck samurai warriors as protectors of scared peasants as we see when the hero of 'Fearless' - Huo Yuan Jia - is rescued, both physically and morally, through the fortunate connection he develops with the people at the rural heart of China, whose honest peasant simplicity saves him from the wreck of his previous life as an arrogant bully and wastrel: Again, there is the humbling of heroism which demonstrates the ultimate refinement of primitive savagery into a civilized and civilizing value - true, unassuming, socially contributory, unselfish, self-sacrificing, pure heroism. 'Fearless' gives to each of these tragic poles of human striving - aggression and sacrifice - their full moral weight, being at once horrific and spiritually healing, in just the manner - in fact - of the great dramatic precursors of both the Chinese theatre (tellingly referenced in an early scene), and of the ancient Greek drama or Icelandic sagas which stand like stark crags dominating all our western cultural landscapes.This is a film worthy to stand alongside the pity, terror and moral dignity of the greatest westerns. It exists at a penetrating point of existential sublimity very far distant from the aimlessly pretty butterfly flutterings of a pretentious, overblown romantic fantasy such as that darling of effete tastes, 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.' Jet Li's portrayal of a great wushu warrior is every bit as noble a film hero as were any of the famous shootists of the Wild West whom Hollywood elevated to moral stature.

This was one of the first Martial arts movies i watched, after this i backtracked and saw Hero, and a few others movies featuring Jet Li, though i don't wish to compare them, this movie was the one that got me excited about this genre. Where unlike the usual need of fitting in romance, no matter what kind of movie it is, this movie kept to the plot, no distractions. Though I didn't really feel the whole theme of western oppression as much as it would have liked to be conveyed it still gave a strong story, with nice character development whom you root for. I am no martial arts expert, not beyond what I see in video games, but the stances used seemed really familiar to me, and that hooked me in even more, to see possible fighting applications. This movie stays on point, and although it has a theme, its ignorable, and everyone can enjoy it.