TheRetroCritic

Here's the video review version of my Fist Of Legend review.

Directed by Gordon Chan, Fist Of Legend is a loose remake of Fist Of Fury in which Jet Li takes on the role of Chen Zhen, made popular in the 70's by Bruce Lee. Set during the Japanese occupation, we first meet Chen Zhen as a student who learns of his master's death and returns to his old kung-fu school to pay his respects. Soon enough, he starts to suspect foul play and a rival martial arts school causes trouble over and over. Add to that the fact that Zhen's love interest is Japanese so not exactly popular with his peers and you've got yourself a busy little movie with plenty of tension but also plenty of fighting. Li may not be as expressive or charismatic of an actor as Bruce Lee but he knows his kung-fu and the fight scenes are impressive throughout the film. Gordon Chan not only makes them look fantastic but he successfully makes them feel like timeless, iconic set-pieces. The best may very well be the fight between Zhen and Fumio Funakochi (Yasuaki Kurata)

A whopping 6 years after Lethal Weapon 3 , we somehow got another sequel to the iconic buddy cop action franchise starring Mel Gibson as loose cannon Martin Riggs and Danny Glover as Roger "Too Old For This Shit" Murtaugh. A little older but not much wiser, the LAPD duo are still taking on bad guys in the streets in the most destructive and explosive ways possible but now, with Riggs' girlfriend Lorna (Rene Russo) and Murtaugh's daughter being pregnant, they're having to consider their age and their future. On top of that, you've got a Chinese immigrant smuggling ring being exposed which builds into a money laundering masterplan led by Jet Li's intimidating villain. And, of course, Leo (Joe Pesci) is thrown in there for added comic relief, as if having Chris Rock fast-talking his way through some of his leftover stand-up routines wasn't enough. It's a bit of a bloated, unfocused script and one wishes that some of it had been edited out or poli

Back in 2001, when The Matrix was still all the rage and "the One" was still Keanu Reeves, there was another "One". Jet Li, that is, in a little film called, quite simply: The One . Directed by James Wong, mostly known for his work on the Fast & Furious franchise, The One was originally meant to star The Rock (yes, when he was still known as The Rock) but, since he was busy working on The Scorpion King , Jet Li was soon cast in the main role. One year post- Romeo Must Die , Li was starting to build a solid US portfolio movie-wise and starred in this goofy sci-fi actioner also starring Jason Statham. The film introduces the idea of a multiverse, basically the existence of multiple parallel universes. In a Highlander -esque twist, if one was to kill every single version of himself throughout the universes, he would gain all their energy and, that way, become some kind of super-powerful being. Which is why Yulaw, evil Jet Li, travels from dimension to dimen