A Legend
review by bobby Blakey

Martial arts icon Jackie Chan and director Stanley Tong have had a long relationship working together on films such as classic action films Police Story, Supercop, A Rumble in the Bronx and numerous more. Their latest film A Legend co-stars Lay Zhang, Na Zha, Aarif Lee, Li Chen, Peng Xiaoran, and Shawn Dou. Could this be another classic team up of will it get lost in the legend of itself?
A Legend follows a renowned archaeologist who unwittingly establishes a mystical connection with a heroic Han dynasty general, blurring the lines between past and present right as the general prepares to wage war against the brutal Hun army while investigating the history of a newly discovered ancient artifact.
This film is said to be a stand-alone sequel to their films The Myth and Kung Fu Yoga in ideals only as they are not actually connected in anyway. The only real connection outside of the archeology and period action adventure is the overuse of CGI that Tong tends to use in the previous films mentioned above and their 2020 film Vanguard.
The de-aging of Jackie Chan looks decent enough until he gets to move too much. The rest of it is hit and miss with most of it looking so obviously CGI that it beings to just come off as too fake. Sadly, that is only the first problem this movie has, and I am not happy to say there are a lot.
As a massive Jackie Chan fan, I will watch anything he does and for all the iconic martial arts classics and action sequences he has delivered there are plenty of not-so-great ones as well. More recently he has veered away from the grittier action with films like Ride and Panda Plan which both ended up being a lot more fun than I
expected. This film has an interesting concept that leant itself to a great period action piece but is so convoluted and all over the place it gets lost in itself.
Obviously with the story there are two stories running here and it could have worked, but it really just doesn’t but mostly because they are way too different. The wuxia side of the story could have been the entire film all by itself and worked just fine, but when it shifts to the present-day story it is pushing a comedic love story that is just weird and doesn’t make much sense to the rest of the film. I get they were trying to connect the two stories and the characters’ attraction, but it never lands. They go so overboard with a lot of it the whole thing just becomes silly and weakens what works in the other stories that already has its own issues.
I love wire work in the classic wuxia films, but here it seems to not be used to just enhance their martial arts prowess, but makes it almost cartoon like. You never really buy into any of these moments, and it really hurts the narrative and good action that they have here. The fight sequences are well executed even if they aren’t up to par for the classic Chan flicks. I am not sure if they just de-aged Chan and let him still play the role, which I doubt, but we don’t even see present day Chan in action until the last act of the film which isn’t that long.
I found myself on a roller coaster in this film finding myself enjoying a lot of the action sequences and then getting annoyed with everything else. I know Chan is likely not able to deliver the same level of action at this age and still love seeing him do his thing, but the over reliance on CGI now is really taking a toll on his films. I hope there is a time when he gets back to some grounded projects before he retires as I think he still has a lot to offer. Sadly, this isn’t one of those films and not one I can recommend outside of hardcore purest Jackie Chan fans.
Decide for yourself and check out A Legend when it hits digital, Blu-ray and DVD from Well Go USA.