Fist of Legend / Tai Chi Master Double Feature
review by Bobby Blakey
journey. The montages alone as it builds towards their prowess in the martial arts is a fun time, but it pales in comparison to the fights to come throughout.
The martial arts action here is outstanding offering up some impressive hand to hand fights, but tons of weapon showcasing. The film builds towards an awesome big epic fight against and army and of course the two friends that is worth the wait. Yeoh doesn’t come into the movie until later, but gets her own time to kick some ass like only she can. This is a classic martial arts flick that looks excellent in this new release and will hopefully find a new audience that has yet to experience its excellence.
Through the years martial arts action icon Jet Li has delivered some of the best films in the genre. While she may be getting bigger praise currently for her work in the film Everything Everywhere All At Once, Michelle Yeoh was right there with him bringing her own iconic brand of action the genre. Now Ronin Flix is bringing two of Li’s films together in one set including Fist of Legend and Tai Chi Master that had him side by side with Yeoh.
Tai Chi Master follows two best friends and fellow martial arts students who are expelled from the storied temple of Shaolin, only to meet again on the battlefield – one a power- hungry general, the other a freedom-fighting rebel, both mortal enemies.
The 1993 film is from director Yeun Wo-Ping who is a legend in his own right working as action director on films like Ip Man 3 and 4. This is a classic martial arts flick that takes its time to build the story of these two friends from child hood not only showcasing their story of friendship, but also their martial arts training
Fist of Legend follows Chen Zhen, a Chinese engineering student in Kyoto, who braves the insults and abuse of his Japanse fellow students for his local love Mitsuko Yamada, daughter of the director, returns in 1937 to his native Shangai, under Japanse protectorate -in fact military occupation- after reading about the death of his kung-fu master Huo Yuan Jia in a fight against the Japanese champion Ryuichi Akutagawa. While overcoming suspicion and ambition within the kungfu school, Chen exhumes his master to prove Hou's defeat was the result of poisoning. Both nationalities make the case a test of honor, so Chinese and Japanese pride are at stake when it culminates in Chen's final epic duel against the ruthless, undefeated Japanese general Fujita.
Every fight sequence in this film is better than the next complete with a recreation of the iconic fight of Chen Zhen versus the Karate school. Right in the opening of the film it sets the tone with a classroom fight sequence that lets you know of the awesomeness to come. Li is in top form here setting his classic look that would become his signature for years to come and showcasing why he is the mega action star he is today. I love that this film shuffles the action between one on one fights that are all kinds of awesome with group fights that take it up to epic proportions.
This new release offers up a custom slipcover along with new digitally re-touched versions of the best available high-definition (1.85:1) masters of both films, new Cantonese, Mandarin 2, and English lossless DTS-HD master audio tracks, NEW English subtitles translated from the original Cantonese version of the films and all of the historical bonus features, these Blu-ray’s really pack a punch.
In addition to this collector’s set you can also get each of the films individually with all of them available now from Ronin Flix.
For more information or to place your order head over to https://roninflix.com/
