Jet Li's Fearless-Fearless I tell you!

Last weekend I happened across Jet Li's Fearless, a 2006 flick I had an interest in seeing last year. It was hailed as Jet Li's last martial arts epic. After Fearless, there would be no more half shaved heads with ponytails and philosophical tea drinking for this guy. The commercials had me pretty pumped, but the iffy reviews it received made me cool my "jets". Time went by and I forgot all about it.

Fast forward to last weekend, I started watching this movie just to fill some time in the middle of the weekend. I thought it would be one of those movies where I see the beginning, end and then the middle in different segments (I've almost pieced together The Sixth Sense this way. Ohhh, Bruce Willis is dead, that's why his wife won't talk to him. Killed by a New Kid on the Block no less). My wife walked in and was interested, so we decided to watch it together later.

Jet Li's Fearless is a return for Li to his best style of Martial Arts movie, the historical drama full of Chinese pride and cultural superiority over the West. In many, many ways it's reminiscent of Li's classic Once Upon A Time In China series. But in some important ways it's different. In the China series, Li's character is constantly trying to do the right thing. With Fearless, Li spends the first third of the movie almost being a villian-a sympathetic villian, but a villian nonetheless.

Fearless tells the story of Huo Yuanjia, an unbeatable martial artist who thinks the key to life is winning every fight. The story follows Yuanjia from childhood, where he witnesses his Martial arts master father beaten in a challenge and then gets his own butt whipped by the son of the guy who beat his dad (follow that?). Yuanjia becomes bitter and dedicates his life to never losing a fight.

The movie skips to young adulthood with Li as a twenty something Yuanjia. Li's too old to pass for twenty, but he turns in his best acting performance ever in this movie. I'm not saying Li = DeNiro, but for him it's really good. Li captures the desperate need and impetuous arrogance of Yuanjia. Some tragic stuff happens that leads to Yuanjia getting lost in the country before finding his way back with the unselfish purpose of bettering China against Western occupation. Li handles the transition smoothy and is convincing in his role throughout.

The action is terrific, Li can still do chop-socky with the best of them. This was done with some great wire work courtesy of the legendary Yuen Po-Wing (read: the guy who choreographed the flying people in The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Best of all, the fight scenes actually serve a purpose in the story showing the evolution of Yuanjia as a character/person (it's based on a real person).

This movie had a lot to say about the importance of personal integrity and fighting both physically and spiritually to be a better person. It falls a little short of the first Once Upon A Time In China movie but still is both visually entertaining and emotionally moving. I definitely recommend this movie.