Sigh … Jet Li, once again appearing as the famous Wong Fei-Hong, this time takes a trip out to the Wild, Wild West with his fiancé Aunti Yee (Kwan). They encounter a tribe of Native Americans, Wong goes boom in the water and loses his memory, Auntie Yee thinks he’s dead, some cowboy with the amazingly original name of Billy hooks up with them and helps the Chinese out when they run into problems with the local (and racist) mayor, and then some nutty outlaws ride into town and cause trouble and who the hell gives a good goddamn by this point?

The plot really isn’t the main problem here; Hung’s direction is more to blame for this boring mess. Sammo has never been the greatest fight-scene director and all of the fights here suffer for it. He constantly positions the camera too close to the action and then edits like his life depends upon it. This causes both confusion and disorientation in literally every battle. Some of the wirework is interesting but it all flies by so fast that the viewer can’t keep up with who is where, who got punched, how a table got in the mix or who is bleeding and why.

The film is riddled with stereotypes including one offensively buck-toothed Chinese character. What, they couldn’t get Jerry Lewis for that role? Was he tied up with the telethon that weekend or what? I’m confused.

Towards the end of the plot, the aforementioned outlaws enter the fray; their leader dressed all in black (of course) with ridiculous construction paper eyebrows. While in the woods man in black purposely cuts himself to attract wolves with the scent of his blood and then does some trick with his spurs to kill one. Or something; damn thing went by so quick I couldn’t see what the hell happened.

This dude also knows Kung Fu since him and Li have a big showdown at the end of the film that makes no sense what so ever. The sound effects for said fight are straight out of a Saturday Night Live skit and made me long for the subtleness of a Hong Kong Phooey cartoon.

Yeah so … avoid this disaster at all costs and rent the original ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA or TAI-CHI MASTER or FIST OF LEGEND or even THE NUTTY PROFESSOR for goodness sakes.

To read more about these other Jet Li films, and to also see another (far kinder) opinion about ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA AND AMERICA, check out SILMAN’S LIST OF NON-JAPANESE MARTIAL ARTS CLASSICS.