Fridae

After making three films about Yip Man that were all retellings of Fist of Fury, it’s hardly surprising that Donnie Yen would be involved with an actual sequel to the nationalistic Bruce Lee flick. Yes, that’s right. Released no doubt with an eye on the anniversary of the Mukden Incident, Legend of the Fist has Donnie Yen play Chen Zhen and kicking more Japanese butt.

But wait – didn’t Chen Zhen die in a hail of Japanese bullets at the end of Fist of Fury? Gordon Chan and his team of scriptwriters have performed some fierce retconning to allow Donnie Yen to reprise a dead man’s role. When the film opens, we find Chen Zhen enrolled as a Chinese volunteer coolly saving France from the Germans in WWI with what appears to be mutant/superhero powers of flight, speed, and strength. The film never quite explains how he survived the ending of Fist of Fury, or how his fighting style got upgraded, or how he managed to control his rage and mellow down.

Then, the film moves on to inter-war Shanghai, where the Japanese plot to start the ball rolling on their Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. Shanghai: a neutral city in peacetime but hardly at peace with itself, where its tense elites flock to forget their troubles in a casino very unsubtly called “Casablanca”, where Kiki’s (Shu Qi) awkward renditions of Ge Lan classics presumably add on to the tension. She has a secret Japanese name which shares a few characters with Yoshiko Kawashima – what are the chances that she’s a top spy? And what are the chances that when the Japanese start their dastardly plan to take over the city, that Chen Zhen will fall in love with her before clashing with her?

Ah! But you didn’t expect Chen Zhen to don a Green Hornet costume when fighting against the Japanese, did you? Or that despite how times have changed – the Japanese and foreigners are exploiting China just because they can, not because of any belief in their superiority – Chen Zhen still manages to scream “China is not the sick man of Asia!”, as though it still matters. And that, by the way, is the only time when Donnie Yen vaguely passes for Bruce Lee.

To be fair, Legend of the Fist is a very trashy and entertaining flick. The action scenes are competently executed. However, Gordon Chan’s trademark shows once again – the story is crammed with a plethora of half-baked sub-plots that aren’t fleshed out to their potential and don’t work together. The ride itself, though, is worth it if you like to see Donnie Yen play an Asian superhero in a Green Hornet costume.