As one of Elvis' record sleeves boasts, 50 million fans can't be wrong. If the same can be said of the wildly popular ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA series, so be it. I'm prepared to be the one fool who is wrong. 

The premise according to the jacket:

"China's been infected with a plague known as the Western world, and Wong Fei-hung refuses to stand by and watch as his country is decimated by the foreign forces. A martial arts expert, Wong collides with the foreigners, their influence, and, especially, their firearms.

"Leading his band of misfit militia, Wong is determined to stop the immoral slave trade that serves California gold fields. When his favorite cousin is kidnapped to be sold as a prostitute, Wong must battle his countrymen and the superior firepower of the slave traders, all for the very soul of traditional China."

Sounds good. The theme of preserving "traditional China" and the integrity of the martial arts is an appealing one. The irony, though, is that the actual execution undermines those very principles the film is trying to convey. How are we supposed to see the value of traditional martial arts when we can barely perceive what's happening? There's a lot of leaping around and fast cutting. A foot here. A fist there. You can't even tell which body part belongs to whom half the time. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Jet Li, being a wushu champ, can move like all getout. Stand back and let us appreciate what he can do.  What the human body can do. Hyper editing, outlandish choreography, and special effects only serve to denigrate his abilities.

Having said that, there are times when I'm willing to let these sorts of things go. A highly charismatic actor, good writing, or cinematography can all make up for not-so-great martial arts presentation, but, in this case, we don't get any of these to counterbalance the fighting sequences. Jet Li is not particularly engaging, and he doesn't have a whole lot to work with. His character is so one dimensional, it's painful - as Lex Luthor would say, an "overgrown Boy Scout." The heavy-handed anti-Western sentiment isn't surprising either. Subtlety is not one of Tsui Hark's strong points.

In film, as in music, variation in dynamics is something of a lost art. I should have known there would be trouble as the opening titles unfolded over a traditional-tinged Chinese song set to a wretched drum machine. Bleech. The whole feeling of this film is just.flat.  Yeah, the fight scenes are hyper-kinetic, but there's no variation, so everything's on 10 all the time. Rather dismayed by the introductory "General's Theme," I dug up this passage from the composer, James Wong, from The Swordsman and his Jiang Hu: Tsui Hark and Hong Kong Film. And while I'm not exactly keen on his song, I can't disagree with anything Wong's said here:

"Tsui Hark is a sensitive soul. Yet for unknown reasons, he's surprisingly coy when depicting feelings in film. I sometimes think he is painfully shy about expressing feelings. Tsui's visual effects have an unparalleled richness, but he sometimes goes overboard. I think he has yet to grasp the art of pacing. His soundtracks, like everything else in his movies, have the rhythm of a machine gun. Right from the get go, he bombards you with a climax; the final climax is therefore not so climactic anymore."

My senses numbed by the first film, I popped the second installment, ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA II into the player. Sleeve Jacket Number Two reads as follows:

"Dr. Wong Fei-Hung, his assistant Foon, and his beloved aunt arrive in Canton for a medical conference in which Wong is to demonstrate the art of Chinese acupuncture. Unbeknownst to them, however, the city is on the brink of revolution, as pro-democracy rebels and anarchists alike threaten the stability of a crumbling dynasty.

"Justice his only allegiance, Wong joins forces with a brave revolutionary Sun Yat Sen when a religious terrorist group - The White Lotus Clan - initiates a campaign of violence against all foreigners in an attempt to preserve Chinese culture."

I'll admit I actually did like this sequel a teensy bit more than the original. That's not saying a whole lot, but at least we don't get hit over the head quite so many times with the Anti-Western Bludgeon. And for some reason, I find Donnie Yen to be a much more convincing action man than Jet Li. I'm not sure if that's because it's intrinsically harder to play the Boy Scout or if it's the fight choreography. Maybe Yen's simplified style is just more appealing to me than Li's flowery windmilling.

And what about those 50 million fans? Well, at one time, 50 million fans probably thought bell-bottoms were cool, too.

Click to see Silman's review of ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA.

Jet Li
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