Maidgethma Wonderfully offbeat film!

SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

trick_morr When I watch a kung-fu movie I'm looking for some simple elements. Good fight scenes, entertaining characters, a hero to cheer for and a villain to hate. Ultimately, a movie that takes me out of reality a little bit.The "hero" of the movie starts off as the mindless unstoppable killing machine who is the secret weapon of the cultist army. But then we get some backstory involving his mother and his tragic past and suddenly he is just a simple boy who is kind of cute and naive in a charming way? It's a strange shift. He is told he needs to learn Chen style kung-fu to realign his energy flow or he will die. His army and master are killed so he is free and so he travels to Chen village.The "villain" in this movie was way too easy to empathize with. The small village we are supposed to be rooting for as they are bullied by the westerners just comes across as elitist and snobby. They treat the "villain" as an outsider because of his family origins even though he lived there his whole life, and even bully him with the kung-fu they refuse to teach to him or any "outsiders" They also refuse to teach our "hero" and actually try to beat him up many times.We could probably easily respect their tradition of not teaching outsiders but no screen time is given to developing or explaining that tradition so it just seems cruel.The movie escalates into a tragedy which will draw the attention of the foreign soldiers and most likely lead to the destruction of the village, and it's all just too GRAY. In kung-fu movies I like things black and white, good and evil, right and wrong... this movie left me unsure of who to even care about or who to root for.The production value is high, so the movie looks good, visually. The fight scenes are mediocre and too few, with too many effects that just don't add to the experience they way they are supposed to. There are even cartoonish freeze frames and game-like text (reminiscent of Scott Pilgrim) which would make this movie seem like pure entertainment, but it keeps bogging itself back down in muddy reality by balancing the good and bad of each character.The ending is a cliffhanger, leaving everything mostly unresolved.In the end, its the story which is too much like the gray of real life, its the lack of clearly defined characters who I can easily love and hate, which kills this movie for me. Maybe real life is like that, but if I wanted to feel the complex tragedy of the human condition I wouldn't be watching a kung-fu movie.I just don't know what this movie wanted to be, and I get the feeling the director didn't either.

KineticSeoul When I saw the trailer for this movie I thought it had the potential to be the next "Kung Fu Hustle". Another cool and entertaining wacky/cartoony fighting movie. While the premise is similar to "Kung Fu Hustle" the narrative and build up is just so darn boring. It just constantly just tries to rely on gimmicks instead of it being well crafted and entertaining movie. In fact there is hardly any fighting in this movie. Yeah, the main protagonist hardly has any good fight scenes. It just constantly relies on pop ups which makes references to comic books, video games and other kung fu references. Which could have worked, but felt more like a random gimmick in order to make this crappy movie hip and cool. Which isn't the case, it just comes off corny and lame. And heavily relies on the 3D aspects of this movie when it hit theaters in China. I managed to sit through the build up, because I was anxious to at least see some cool climatic fight sequences. But that doesn't even happen. Instead it goes in a "to be continued" which is fine. But just about nothing about this movie is satisfying. I think it's okay to leave room for a sequel. As long as the movie itself is satisfying but makes you crave for more. That isn't the case here, this flick is far from being satisfying. And by the end you felt cheated.3/10

O Zayev Its my first review so you'll forgive me in case anything wrong... But as a long time fan of martial arts and kung fu cinema, and as a tai chi practitioner i couldn't just watch and forget. This movie along with its sequel fails in all directions. Even the touch of Sammo Hung didn't save it. Action scenes were corrupted with cgi and ridiculous wire-work. Attempted comedy failed big time. I admit i did enjoy the sequel but not until after the stupid kung fu vs canons and fire-guns. TC0 was so boring i didn't even wonder what would come first, i just hoped that it ended soon. I cant believe someone actually spared money for this kinda production. One thing is clear - it is not a kung fu movie, and if its a comedy its a bad one. Sure there were high budget explosions but i couldn't make it up for all other failures. If you plan on watching this move i advise you to pass. And only watch the sequel. You wont be missing anything and you can thank me later for sparing you 2 hours that you would've lost on this. 3/10

chaos-rampant China is changing. Because film is a major force for shaping the national character, among the most interesting things these days, is watching the Chinese scramble to reinvent (post Mao) who they are and how they fit in the modern world.Their newly-emerging documentary school chronicling the industrial rise of China is one aspect of this, and seems to have produced some pretty good pieces.Their tried and tested practice though, meant both for internal consumption and abroad, is manufactured postcards of harmony (moral, spiritual), usually anchored in fabled history, usually in martial arts.We saw that with the faddish promotion of qigong in the 90's, the Wong Fei Hung films and Zhang's Hero. We saw it again a few years ago with Yip Man. This juvenile mishmash is a tai chi showreel for the twitter generation reared on blockbuster steroids. It is another 'origins' story of martial arts, that of Yang-style taijichuan. And because the filmmaker probably felt that to his teenage audience the mid-1800's would seem like forever ago, he goes crazy on myth and movie nonsense, but careful not to upset state officials. This leads to a pretty boneheaded product. Once more, Chinese 'purity' is contrasted with encroaching Western civilization. Westerners standing in for capitalism and technology are portrayed as evil and corrupting, while the actual film is made by copying what is currently trending in the capitalist blockbuster market.The steampunk revisionism of a huge metallic beast threatening the old way of life is from Wild Wild West. The notion of a small community where everyone is a martial arts expert is from Kung Fu Hustle (and of course the story of Chen Jia Gou). The obvious video game humor is from Scott Pilgrim. The wire-fu is Sammo Hung's and a longtime staple of cinematic wushu via HK. The speed-ramps of the opening battle are from 300, with other perspectives borrowed from Scott and recent John Woo.This is all echoed inside the film as the young boxer learning taijichuan by imitating the moves.As someone who practices in the Yang-style, I advise you to steer clear of this. It has no sincerity or soul. What is of some interest, is noting the irony of this film in the current climate of aggressively expansive Chinese capitalism. Or how the Kung Fu Panda franchise is widely celebrated there.Meanwhile, Chinese martial arts have gone from their original mix and match roots of outlaw boxing, to collective standardization in the communist years, to government-promoted sport, to exhibition and health therapy. Having proved inadequate in the modern mixed martial arts world, the current move is away from the forced harmony of (usually fabricated) tradition and towards the practical cross-training system of sanda/sanshou, which in turn emulates several foreign styles.