Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen

TedFlicks Rating:

$8.75 ticket on a scale of $0 to $13.50

DONNIE YEN OUTSHINES THE PRODUCTION

As an actor of great charm and persuasion as well as an unparalleled choreographer of Asian martial arts, Donnie Yen rightfully occupies a place for US auds where there is little competition — with the notable exception of Jackie Chan.  It would be nice if the producers of his 2010 vehicle, Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen, had the same degree of professionalism.

Instead, “Legend,” which offers a pretty good skein, decent special effects, a talented Chinese cast (pic is largely in Chinese with English subtitles) — non Chinese actors do not rise to the level of their Asian counterparts — gets demerits for two flaws:  1) The western and Japanese characters (with one notable exception, Qi Shu, who plays a triple role as showgirl, Japanese spy, and captain in the Japanese Army) are allegorical — they may as well be comic book figures — and  2) Every automobile allegedly shot in 1925 Shanghai was not built until at least 1942 — some or them not until after 1950.  Your critic counted Buicks, a Packard, a couple of Chevrolets, and a Plymouth, all but one post-World War II cars, and one of them a 1942 model.  With all the money sloshing around in East Asia one would think that producers could procure period-correct cars.

That said, “Legend” is an entertaining 105 minutes of Hong Kong produced suspenseful film which should, if it didn’t have subtitles, appeal to a broad range of American filmgoers.

Pic starts with a sensibly economical exposition using title cards.  150,000 Chinese were sent as laborers to aid the Allies at the Western front in the First World War in 1917.  Throw in a little Chinese nationalism:  The Versailles conference gave German concessions in China to Japan.  Add an intro to martial arts as Chen Zhen, one of the 150,000, played by Donnie Yen, dispatches the Kaiser’s best unarmed as the French retreat, and we have the beginnings of our stew.

Fast forward to 1925.  Martial arts master Chen Zhen reappears in China in disguise after being thought to have been killed in 1917.  He quickly gets a job in a nightclub in the British settlement of Shanghai playing the piano and rising rapidly to partner of owner Master Liu (Anthony Wong Chau-Sang), an ultimately kindly figure who has little use for the Japanese invading his country — they create scenes in his nightclub and drive away other patrons.  Club’s musical numbers are not exactly “Singing in the Rain” material but entertain nonetheless.

Star of Master Liu’s floorshow is Kiki, the ravishing Taiwanese Qi Shu.  She quickly moves in on Chen Zhen.  Eyes are on him.  Especially after he grabs a leather outfit (complete with mask) from the window of a fetish store and in disguise dispatches Japanese operatives sent to mess up the Shanghai police in a street fight.  The change in the window display after Chen Zhen’s lift is occasions one of pic’s best moments.

Chen Zhen’s return to Shanghai coincides with the creation of a nationalist cell by his former comrades from France — the group includes his sister.  These guys are connected to the newspapers and to the local police, who play a pretty good role disguising their anti-Japanese efforts.

Screenplay plays fast and loose with historical facts, but the general point of view that the Japanese are pic’s bad guys would be proven again and again until the lessons of August 1945 were taught to them.

The slow revelation of Kiki’s true identity and the backstory between Chen Zhen and the Japanese colonel in charge of their forces in Shanghai (Ryu Kohata) — it seems that Chen Zhen killed his dad in a fair fight — move the plot forward to the ultimate scene, a hand-to-hand martial arts battle between Chen Zhen and the Japanese colonel — after said colonel has done in Kiki (in uniform as Captain Yamaguchi) by summary execution with Samurai sword.

Fans of Donnie Yen will be comforted to know that “Legend” follows a familiar and proven formula.  Yen, who was born the same year John F. Kennedy was shot, hardly looks his age.  He is in magnificent shape.  Pic, despite its flaws, is a satisfying spy melodrama with adequate comic relief.  It’s rated R in the US, and your critic thinks the rating is way over the top.  Despite some four-letter words, the violence is stylized and the sex is largely off-screen.  The kids might like it.

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