User reviews

This is the first martial arts film that I enjoyed very much. It has a very strong plot which is also based on a true story about an martial arts master, Huo Yuan Jia and together with great actors and actresses, a masterpiece is presented. As an Asian, I have already seen too much martial arts movie, however this one stuns me with the story and acting as I have mentioned above, but as well as their visual effects, every movement is shown clearly, one would find their heart beating hard as the fight is going on, the music in the film also fits perfectly with the film. I have to mention that this film is quite Hollywood standard and I believe it is because Jet Li had already learn a few elements to make a good Hollywood film when he was filming some Hollywood films a few years back. As Jet Li has said, this will be his last martial arts movie and wants to make it a good one, I think he has already fulfilled his dreams, because this is a truly Jet Li movie and I think a lot of people would like this film.

Make no mistake about it, Fearless is the best straight-ahead martial arts film since Jackie Chan's seminal Drunken Master 2. Director Ronny Yu crams more bone-jarring, well crafted fight scenes into the first forty minutes of this movie than most films can match in their entire runtime. This is a canny move, as it pulls in the viewer via the blurring action before beginning to develop the film's narrative in the middle third. While the story is a well used one (kung-fu bully comes to realise his skills can be used to educate rather than brutalise), it's a perfect structure on which to hang the film's many excellent confrontations. It's obvious that this film is Li's love letter to his Wu Shu background and martial arts in general. In dramatic terms, Fearless never reaches the heights of recent wuxia movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Hero and so is unable to feel truly fulfilling as a great movie per se. It is however up there with Jet Li's very best work in the genre, OUATIC & Fist of Legend for example, and if it is (sadly) true that it is to be his last period martial arts picture, it's a hell of a bang to go out on.

Let's get to the point. This is Jet Li's best movie in years. Not because of the fight scenes, but because the plot is engaging throughout and the emotional tension of the movie works, even though it was a bit tangled with a bit of preach.

The plot is simple. I think everyone here knows about it, so I won't spent time talking too much about it. Jet Li plays Huo Yuan Jia, an arrogant young man that has no regard for human life so to speak, and in one brash move, he indirectly caused the death of his family. He journey to a remote village to learn humility. This is probably the weakest part of the film. Mainly because a large part of it was cut out from the theatrical release. Huo had a few dialogues with Betty Sun, who played a blind girl. Their relationship was very underdeveloped. And Huo's return to Shanghai to fight was with brevity, and hardly explained. He returns to Shanghai and defends his country's honor.

I thought Jet Li did a great job acting both as the arrogant man and as the wiser wushu master. But people of course, came to see Jet Li fight. And to me, the earlier fight scenes are good, but have too much computer effects and slow motion. Still, it was refreshing to see Jet Li return to using Chinese Kung Fu.

The best fight scenes in the movie are definitely the battle between Huo and Nathan Jones, the hulking giant and the weapons fight between the Japanese Samurai and Jet Li using the sword against the three sectional staff. The ending was very emotional, and it was refreshing to see a different take unlike most endings of old Jet Li movies.

The movie could have been better of course, but I was very satisfied with it, both the plot and the action sequences.

9/10

I've always been a fan of Jet Li since his early days, and frankly his movies and performances in them have been terrible in the last few years mainly due to his attempts to be a profitable and a more mainstream actor in the US. As a result, we were treated to "nice" movies like The One and Cradle to the Grave. This movie though makes up them. This was truly a gem. Not only were the action sequences spectacular, and I iterate spectacular, but the story line and acting as well as screen play was very tastefully done. Gone were the traditional comedic side plot, and welcomed was a sense of respect not only for the Chinese but also for some of the foreign countries that are often portrayed poorly in the movies. In the end, I can't help but feel like I've not only seen a great movie but felt the humanity and pride that the movie released. See it!

This is an exciting, beautiful, exceptional martial arts movie that cements Jet Li's superlative contribution to kung-fu cinema. It is absolutely filled with stirring martial arts and gloriously made, with eye-filling cinematography. Although the story is simple, it is heart-felt and effective. It's hard to understand how anyone who could call this boring, unless they are so jaded and cynical that their review would be useless in any case. This film is a great accompaniment to Jet's Shaolin Temple series, Once Upon a Time in China films, Fist of Legend, and Hero, and an absolute must-see for anyone who enjoyed those films.

While not as accomplished as Hero (2002), this film is successful, benefits from combat scenes particularly well choreographed and (it's sufficiently rare to be noted) a moral. Thus, if the first half might be reduced, by being slightly in bad faith, to a succession of d*ck comparisons, the second half highlights a philosophy of life based on respect, dignity and honor, even with the foreigners, even while knockin' on heaven's door. Nice! As a synthesis: 7/8 of 10.

Fearless has a similar structure to last years' Unleashed (2005), in that this is not just a martial arts extravaganza, but also a film with heart and proper acting on the part of Jet Li. This latest effort, despite flaws, is the much more accomplished of the two works; both contain exceptional and brutal fight scenes, and a central 'drama' section where Li's character learns about life and about who he is, and both of these aspects are handled better in Fearless.

Based on actual events, the story focuses on Li's Huo Yuanjin, martial arts master whose family is murdered and who flees his home, only to be taken in by simple farmers. Spending many years there, Huo learns to embrace peace and live out his simple life with the villagers. However, he is tempted back to his home town in an effort to show the foreign powers that are flooding China that the Chinese people are unified, and will not be suppressed by foreigners. He sets up a martial arts school and competes in a four-way tournament to prove that he is the greatest fighter in the world.

Make no mistake; the main appeal to the film is the fight sequences. Courtesy of the ever versatile Yuen Wo Ping, (The Matrix Trilogy, Crouching Tiger) the staggering fight choreography manages to combine the graceful moves of Hero (2002) with the brutality of Unleashed to create possibly the greatest action scenes put to film, aided by Jet Li's so-good-it-looks-easy martial arts capabilities. The film starts as it means to go on, and contains plenty of inventive action, the main highlights being a colossal one-on-one in a restaurant and of course the climactic four-way tournament.

The film is not all action though; at its centre is the time spent with the villagers where Huo 'finds himself'. This is perhaps the films weakest point, but it is held up by the fact that Jet Li, showing he's not only a martial arts expert, can actually act. However, the scenes are lacking, from a scripting and directing point of view, enough emotional depth to allow us to truly get involved. Being based on a true story the film had to play out as it did, but one feels that Huo could have gone anywhere to find himself, even stayed at home and become a recluse. Director Ronnie Yu lacks the directorial range to let these scenes flourish, so the section begins to bog itself down with unnecessary sentimentality. However, it is a more developed section than the comparable parts in Unleashed and although maybe is too short – it could have been developed into much more – it at least doesn't outstay its welcome. Jet Li is good though, and nicely moves from the arrogance of his early days to the wiser warrior in the second half.

Fearless shows us a moralistic China that is ruled by an honour that is now lost amongst the modern world, and its portrayal of upholding traditional values is a welcome move; it gives the film purpose, and not just an excuse to make good action scenes. Ironically, the films message is one of anti-violence, and if this is indeed to be Jet Li's last martial arts film, then he has gone out on a high.

Rated: 8/10

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Almost flawless, this new release improves on the style and genre in a significant way. The film is presented in a way that the viewer can appreciate it from several perspectives without heavily relying on the genre's standard formulas. We don't have to wade through the typical love triangle, the maniacal drug lord contracting a hit, or the beloved school's instructor being tortured and murdered before the ultimate revenge takes place. This film has a legitimate story line, skillfully presented in a clear and well edited manner.

Although the film was generally concerned with the development of a specific fighting style and philosophy, the audience is also treated to some authenticity of the then Chinese culture and the biography of a Chinese martial arts master. These features seem to give the production a much higher level of credibility than the average martial arts action movie.

Although we did experience some speed editing in fight scenes, it was done in such a way that it enhanced, rather than detracted, from the believability of the film. In "House of Flying Daggers", for example, the ballet and acrobatic like choreography of some of the fight scenes tended to undermine, rather than enhance. If there was any flaw in the fight scenes present, it was minor. This flaw may have been inescapable because of the inherent limitations of the style of the film itself. For example, trivial features such as disconnected striking combinations at the expense of speed editing, or the fact that the Japanese martial artist did not seem to be using a typical Japanese style of fighting. (It appeared to be a combination of Chinese and Korean oriented styles).

This film should, by all rights, reset the bar for the standards of martial arts films from now on. It was simply an outstanding film in every way.

It's 1910. China is considered the sick man of Asia. In Shanghai, the foreign powers created a contest with their four champion fighters. Only martial artist Huo Yuanjia (Jet Li) rose to the challenge. He dispatches the three western champions in various disciplines. Only Tanaka from Japan is left. The movie flashes back 30 years ago in Tianjin. Yuanjia's father wants him to learn writing rather than the family wushu. Despite that, he continues to strive to make Huo Wushu the best. However family tragedy strikes and he has to reconsider his life.

The fights are terrific and wall to wall. The action is great. The stunt work is exceptional. The story is actually good and compelling. Jet Li is an action hero who provides good emotional acting this time around. Director Ronny Yu brings good work to the film. The fight against the boxer is a great set piece.

Martial arts films tend to be rather over the top and fantastic in tone as a norm. As such it's refreshing to see one taking place in recent history and featuring actual historical people.

Fearless tells the tale of Huo Yuanjia, the prodigious son of a long line of martial arts practitioners, who grows in the late 19th century China, in a nation that's buckling under the Western pressure and occupation. We see him growing from a cocky young fighter into a man that in his own way tried to preserve and protect the ideal that was and still is China.

In my opinion this is Jet Li's finest film. He's everything the role needs him to be and then some. Absolutely perfect casting and one of the films where you can see that he actually has a lot of acting talent as well. Sure he can probably identify a lot with the role, but that only makes him so much better for the role. He can also pull off the more serious tone of the story in comparison to usual martial arts ware. Someone like Jackie Chan would be too comical and not arrogant enough for the role.

Aside from that, it's a professionally done film. The production values are very high, the whole film looks and sounds great, the story has enough soul and depth behind it to convince and it's interesting to follow. The need to follow a historical story does make some of the plot twists seem a bit weird, because the film doesn't have enough time to give us the whole context, but that never becomes a major problem.

Fearless is an excellent film to pick if you're looking for a more serious take on the martial arts genre, without giving up any of the quality or enjoyability.

This movie has it all: a good story, based on real history; very good imagery and soundtrack; nice fighting scenes; last, but not least, a moral.

Jet Li plays a very important character in Chinese history, one that made Chinese people feel proud in a time when all their traditions were torn up by the interaction with the West. One can interpret the message of the movie in many ways. It is a movie about conquering yourself, about the meaning of honor and what it really means to be respected. Jet Li's character evolves from basically a glorified bully to the founder of a true Martial Arts competition based on respect of people and of fighting art. It is also a movie about how industry screws up... everything, really.

I personally feel that the film had enough material to be turned into a mini-series. The time from his personal tragedy to his realizing the meaning of his father's words it's very short and could have been expanded.

In conclusion, this is a great movie of Jet Li's and it's not only for martial arts lovers. I feel that his last "block busters" were meaningless violence films. Fearless is obviously NOT one of these movies. Enjoy.

I saw this movie in Asia and heard that U.S will release it sometime in July 2006. Overall the movie was good. But considering that this is the last action Kung Fu film that Jet Li is going to make, it really was a bit disappointing. His old films had better fighting sequences and techniques. Nothing surprisingly good was in this movie, and for it to be the last one he's making, it's a bit sad. The story was not bad though, but I'm not sure about the accuracy. Since if I remember correctly, Huo Yuan Jia (His character) had a different ending compared to the one shown in the movie. There were also parts of the movie which I thought could have improved a bit. But I guess if they did, the movie would have been too long. Overall, it's totally worth watching, just the fact that it's his last action fighting film, even if it sucks, it's worth it.

I really enjoyed this movie it's so much more than an marital art film it centers around Li's character who is a young & arrogant marital art master, until a tragic event takes place leaving his life meaningless as he begins to find meaning he learns a lot & changes completey, he realises he was wrong & makes amends with his past actions to become a man of great understanding & wisdom. A lot of life lessons can be learned from this one.

The first Jet Li movie which I watched as a little boy, was his Shaolin Temple. Jet next shot to fame and prominence with the various Chinese folk heroes that he played in the late 80s and 90s, like Wong Fei Hong, Fong Sai Yuk, Zhang San Feng, and even taking on Bruce Lee's Chen Zhen role in a Fist of Fury remake called Fist of Legend. In Fearless, he plays martial arts master Huo Yuanjia / Fok Yuen Gaap, whom I presume most who are familiar with Fist of Fury, will know who this chap is.

Like Fong Sai Yuk, Jet's portrayal of Huo Yuanjia starts off like Fong, who initially is a cocky person, proud of his skills, but nothing interests him more than the challenge in the ring. He's uninterested in politics (at that time China was being "invaded" by shiploads of foreigners), and adopts a whole host of disciples who prove to be his downfall.

Also like Fong, we see Huo reeling from his carefree days, get into some serious soul searching, before returning for the finale. But Huo returns a more calm and measured person, setting up the famous Jing Wu Sports Federation, and taking on a whole host of foreign fighters to inspire his countrymen that they are not the "sick men of the east".

As this is much touted as Jet Li's final martial arts film, it's plain obvious of the messages he wished to use this platform to spread. Scattered throughout the film are various martial arts, and probably life philosophy on themes like respect and responsibility, that violence isn't the means to an end. Somehow you forgive the fact that it's so blatant, and it seemed to work well into the plot and narrative, given that Huo's mission in setting up Jing Wu, is for that purpose to, to "spread the word" so to speak. From his early days of Chinese battling Chinese for the "Number 1 pugilist" title, Huo learnt that instead of fighting each other, they should unite in the face of new and external threats, but yet to remember not to neglect the home front, which he personally experienced from tragedy.

But no, the kungfu doesn't suffer from those messages though. In probably one of the most violent Jet Li movies (it's rated NC-16 here, and no cuts detected, except for the absence of Michelle Yeoh's scenes which ended up on the cutting room floor), with bone crunching and blood spewing - you might think that Tony Jaa's acting in it. And director Ronny Yu takes his time to showcase many of Li's moves, be it plain martial arts moves with the fists, with the various weapons used, or Yuen Wo Ping's jazzed up wire work for some of Huo's fights.

And there are many fights which will keep the action fans happy. Though the much touted ones shown ad nausem in trailers against the foreign legion, seemed a bit short in the final product. The filmmakers did keep one awesome fight scene under wraps though, and that is between Huo and nemesis Mister Chin in a teahouse - wreaking tables, chairs, flipping around pillars, navigating through different floors, and ending up in the wine cellar.

It's probably a fitting end to signal Jet's departure from the martial arts movie scene, with the portrayal of Huo given the known circumstances of what happened to the character. Though there are various interpretations, the essence is retained well in the movie. It is inevitable, and there is no Chen Zhen character to distract the audience from what is essentially a showcase movie for Jet Li.

(P.S. I still can't figure out how Michelle Yeoh would have played out in the movie, and no disrespect to her, I thought it worked well, except perhaps for the unnecessary lengthy middle where Huo was searching for himself)

By saying that I mean that the plot was somewhat average and typical for this kind of movies, but the whole movie was exceptionally well made. The actors were really good, the fight scenes were awesome, and the sceneries in the movie were like something out of some "China is fantastic"-commercial. It was a pretty awesome movie and one that I feel perhaps gave a bit more insight into the history and culture of China as well.

With a stronger plot I would probably have given this movie at least a nine. So you should certainly go see this one as soon as possible or better yet - buy the DVD...

Not being a fan of the kung fu genre, I watched this because I like Jet Li. For me, some the fight scenes were too long or too CGI'd. I especially detest enhanced metal-on-metal sounds and had to mute and/or fast forward through some of those scenes. After about a half hour of almost non-stop very lonnng fight scenes, I almost gave up; but I;' glad I didn't, because the rest of the movie was very worth watching. I wondered at the historical accuracy of some of it. For example, would there really be an all-girl drumming team in ca. 1905 China? Would there be female students at the sports school? Women were very important to the story, as they are in real life, and I appreciated that. Beautiful cinematography. look forward to seeing Li in his future non-martial arts films.

i think this movie is quite straightforward. anyone knows a little about Chinese history should know that in the early 20th century china is quite weak.and 1910 was just 10 years after the invasion of baguo lianjun(the union of troops of eight countries).and Chinese people then were called dongya bingfu (the ill of east asia). an insult to Chinese at that time. huo yuanjia is the first martial art master at that time that has waken the spirit of Chinese people and proved to the world that Chinese are not dongya bingfu.so if you don't know the history of modern Chinese, you may find it another martial art movie.but as a Chinese, i think this movie not only a martial art movie but also a brief biography of huo yuanjia with historical background.

I thought this film was truly fantastic. Others might think that this is just a normal martial arts film but i say different i probably think this because i am into all aspects of Chinese lifestyle but really this movie is fantastic. This film shows Huo Yuanjia right from when he was a kid watching his dad practising to his final fight where he is poisoned. I thought jet li's performance was really good but i think there were times where he could have showed more emotion. I like the end part where you see him practising and then he turns around facing the camera and smiles. Oh yeh the movie music is really good. I also think that the blind girl that he meets in the village is really nice and cute.

Jet Li is known for his prowness and skill as a martial artist. For his final movie, "Fearless" makes its point! Based on the life of Wushu master Huo Yuanjia. Ronny Yu did a spectacular job make this movie work. Huo(Li) is a proud fighter, who would goes to the extremes to be the best. His pride however always seems to get the better of him. Whenever he wins a battle, disciples follow him around and began to worship him. When he picks a battle against Master Chin. His fates was sealed. After defeating, and killing Chin his godson takes advantage of killing his mother and daughter Jade. It's a shame that his pride got himself into trouble, then again one of his disciples isn't as loyal as he thought. So Huo leaves his city, and when he made a settling, he meets Moon(Li Sun), a young, blind caring woman. She helps his find himself again which is good, and he also finds a sense of redemption. Then after a few years of exile, his city has changed. It has foreigners residing there. I guess exile served as a purpose to see the errors of his country's lifestyle. In that city he meets a Japanese fighter named Tanaka(Shiro Nakamura). Who talks to Huo about tea, and fighting styles. A sign of respect is brewing between countries. And that fight between Huo and O'Brien(Nathan Jones) makes another awakening. This movie is great. I liked everything it has: The storyline, the choreography, and the fighting skills which surpasses all other movies Jet Li has made. The main theme of this movie is Honor! 5 Stars!

I felt like the movie had a great potential but it may not have performed as well as expected. There was a borderline in which this movie can either be a very good good movie or a very lousy good movie and this movie definitely fell into the very lousy good movie category. The acting wise of the movie was great. Jet Li and the guy who played his best friend did an amazing job. Another good point was the art direction. Great art direction. But if only the producers had spent a little more money in making the movie longer it would be worth it. Just because Hua beat one or two people that didn't show why he was the greatest kung fu guy to live at that moment. There was also only four major plot. When he was young, when he did his mistakes during adult, he ran away and came back, won a couple of matches and died. Again no where near Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or House of Flying Daggers. I don't think this movie would be short listed for the foreign film category at the Oscars next year. But it may have a small chance at the globes.

Raj thelousyllama@yahoo.com