Movie Title: 霍元甲 (Fearless)
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (6/10)
Year: 2006
Fearless official site: http://www.fearlessthemovie.com/
Dubbed as the last Jet Li’s martial art movie, Fearless is a movie set back in the early 1900’s where China was invaded by both the Japanese and the British powers. Both party were looking to grow their influence amongst the Chinese community and constantly tries to challenge the local communities. China is seen as a weak country as the Qing empire starts falling apart, with more lands being conquered by the British and Japanese army.
Fearless tells tale about Huo Yuen Jia (Jet Li), a legendary martial art master in the Chinese community. The movie starts showcasing Huo during his younger years. Huo was a weak and asthmatic child. As such, his dad who was a great martial art teacher also refuses to teach him any martial arts due to his health condition.
Despite his weak health, Huo’s interest for martial arts remains and he secretly hide and learn martial arts by peeking at his dad’s daily practice. One fine day, Huo’s father was challenged to a martial arts battle and little do Huo know, he deliberately lost the challenge to save the challenger’s life. Huo was disturbed by the fact that his father for the first time has lost a challenge and are determined to learn and master martial arts to avenge his father’s lost and be “Tianjin No. 1” martial arts master.
The movie then cut to Huo in his adulthood – married with a daughter and being a master of martial arts. As Huo become more successful in his martial arts career, Huo became more short tempered and arrogant and soon constantly challenge other martial arts master to prove he is the best and deserves the title of “Tianjin No. 1” martial arts master. But little did he know his life turned to hell when he killed Qin Lei (Chen Zhi Hui), a rival martial art master when Huo’s misunderstood the whole situation due to his followers lies to protect himself.
Unable to accept the truth and the consequences of the misunderstanding which cost him his daughter and mother’s life, Huo fleed Tianjin. Feeling guilty for killing an innocent martial art master, Huo tries to commit suicide by drowning himself but was quickly saved by a blind girl, Yuechi (Sun Li) and her grandmother. After staying with Yuechi and her villagers, Huo finally realise that there are more to winning every challenge, there are more to being Tianjin No. 1.
as rumours has it that his health condition is no longer ideal to take up any martial arts movie. . Yes, it seems like he wants to end his martial art career and venture into something else. There were even news that the originally 143 minutes movie was cut to 103 minutes to fit the market. Yes, good 40 minutes being cut here and there.
The place he used to live in was a big mess, the town was being invaded by westerners. Drugs, opium and westerners were seen everywhere. He finally knows that going around picking for fights is not the right thing to do and he decided to fight for the nation. *Yeay! Way to go Jet~*
The movie then zoom back to the starting scene where Huo is fighting against 4 foreigners. I like the ending. As in, it softly portrays how Chinese strikes back to prove to the world we are not Asia’s weakest country. I like how they hint how the Japanese was being used to fight against own Asian countries.
As a whole, I think it has a great package. Great Jet Li as the lead, room for lots of stunts to happen, attention to details (especially the sword fighting scene where the knives got blunted). Yeah what can I say, action to the MAX! But I must say there are lack of development in the storyline. I dun blame them, 40 minutes of the show gone down the drain.
