THE SKINNY: WUTANG CLAN AIN'T NUTTIN' TO %**$ WIT'! WUTANG CLAN AIN'T NUTTIN' TO %**$ WIT! WUTANG CLAN AIN'T NUTTIN' TO %**$ WIT! WUTANG CLAN AIN'T NUTTIN' TO %**$ WIT'! WUTANG CLAN AIN'T NUTTIN' TO %**$ WIT'! WUTANG CLAN AIN'T NUTTIN' TO %**$ WIT'! WUTANG CLAN AIN'T NUTTIN' TO %**$ WIT'! WUTANG CLAN AIN'T NUTTIN' TO %**$ WIT'! WUTANG CLAN AIN'T NUTTIN' TO %**$ WIT! WUTANG CLAN AIN'T NUTTIN' TO %**$ WIT'! WUTANG CLAN AIN'T NUTTIN' TO %**$ WIT'! WUTANG CLAN AIN'T NUTTIN' TO %**$ WIT'!
Seriously tho', who's in the mood for a fun pop-corn movie with Chinese characteristics? Any takers? Oh good! Great Wudang, written by Chan Khan, directed by Patrick Leung, featuring action choreography by Corey Yuen, starring Vincent Zhao, Yang Mi, Louis Fan, To Yu Han, and fresh faced newcomer- Xu Jiao, and presented by our good friends at Mei-Ah Film Group and their mainland collaborators Xiang Xiao Flim Group-will undoubtedly be just what you're looking for.
Vincent Zhao plays Tang Yunlong an erudite martial-arts expert who has just come back to the mother country with his ABC daughter (that's Xu Jiao) in tow. Leaving his little girl in the car, Mr. Tang ducks into a laundry business which takes all of five seconds to be revealed to be a front. Downstairs is a luxuriously furnished den of iniquity, where Mr. Tang is asked to examine an antique sword. The sword is a fake and Mr. Tang, who has probably been in the West too long, refuses to give the dealer of said "antique", a dapperly dressed obvious Triad-type, any face whatsoever. He smashes the sword on the mantlepiece. The the dandyish Triad gets butt-hurt and shoots an elderly Chinese man, probably the den of iniquity's proprietar. He probably should have shot Mr. Tang first; in the time it took the Triad to gun down one old man, Mr. Tang has wrought fistic havoc on the Triad's entourage and is well on his way to escaping. Ever heard the one about how you should charge at a man with a gun but run from from a man with a knife? In the movies, martial-arts experts are equal to ten men with knives. The Triad unwisely pursues Mr. Tang into the den of iniquity's subterranean corridors, where a pistol provides nowhere near the advantage you'd think it would. Mr. Tang, hurts the Triad, badly, but perhaps unwisely, does not finish the Triad off. Machiavelli said that if you are going to do someone an injury, you had better do him a major one, people will try to avenge minor injuries, they cannot avenge injuries that are sufficiently major. Mr. Tang is content to leave his enemy with a wrecked up ankle. Readers can judge for themselves if that is major enough for a rich and ruthless Triad. Mr. Tang then rejoins his daughter in the car.
Now we're on a plane, a postal plane as it later turns out, but this movie takes place back in the day when men like Mr. Tang could wear whiskets and bow-ties and no one would look twice and there were no commercial airlines in China so this postal plane has passengers on it: an army officer, a batch of rowdy martial-arts enthusiasts and a chick (Yang Mi) in ethnicky garb. The alpha-male among the martial-artists, sensing that there is perhaps %*%$@ to be pulled (on a mail plane?) approaches Yang Mi and starts bragging about how he has been sent to represent his school at a prestigious tournament to be held at the Wudang monastery (you all remember Mount Wudang, don't you? It's like the Shaolin temple, only for Taoists. Frankly, its been a little underexposed, movie wise, as of late. Hopefully, "Great Wudang" will help set things right.) The army guy doesn't care for the alpha-male's behavior and tells him off. The alpha-male cracks him and continues to make his move. The chick then decides it's time to show him that it's wrong to assume that, just because she's riding all alone on a mail plane, she's a *@%@. She reveals her true colors as straight-up take-no-prisoners Jiang Hu type, straight out of a wuxia, in all her over-choreographed glory. She then beats up the alpha-male and all his entourage, she and Corey Yuen abuse slow-mo even worse then she abuses her foes, but she beats them up real good, nonetheless. While the melee is going down, the door of the plane is opened and all the mail starts flying out, along with the now unconscious alpha-male's invitation to the Wudang Monastery. **#%! Good thing Ms. Jiang Hu's signature weapon turns out to be a snazzy looking rope dart! Ms. Jiang Hu saves the invite but she does not return it to the alpha male. She keeps it for herself, by golly!
All of this and the opening credits haven't even started! Then they start. As they roll, we get a nice little montage of monks practicing martial-arts, monks doing their devotional duties and some landscape cinematography that would make David Attenborough proud. Clearly the filmmakers have learned something from all those art-house Wuxias that came out in the early 'aughts.
Then we're back to Mr. Tang and his little girl, whose name ends with Ning (I can't remember the rest), are now on a motor-cycle, complete with a sidecar for lil'Ning, tearing it up on some mountain road. A mama duck and her ducklings happen to be waddling across the way as daddy and daughter come barreling down it. Oh no! Thankfully Louis Fan (In the movie his honorable surname is Shui), complete with a Taoist's top-knot and clad in robes that look conspicuously more threadbare than those of the other monks and apparently engaged in dogsbody work while the rest of the monks are perfecting their Kung Fu intervenes acrobatically. Mr. Tang crashes his motorcycle but no one is hurt and the mama duck is safe. Now, all of the principle characters have been introduced and the story can begin in earnest.
And what is the story? Well, it kind of like "Enter the Dragon" meets the "Indiana Jones" franchise. Mr. Tang is there for the tournament. But he's not a competitor. He's entered his daughter. "Enter the Daughter?" Isn't that just a little bit reckless? Sending your daughter, your probably pre-pubescent daughter in to tangle with the roughest and toughest that the Wulin has to offer? Well let's just say Mr. Tang has other, seemingly unethical, fish to fry. Ms. Jiang Hu, also, is not all that interested in winning glory for her teachers and her fist-style and then going on to "rule the world of martial-arts" either. There's a treasure hunt going on, you see. Is Mr. Tang really that big of a jerk? Would he really endanger his daughter just so he could sneak around and steal from monks? You'll just have to watch it and find out.
Xu Jiao is not conventionally pretty, so the cinematographers and film editors don't give her any special treatment. She has not make all her fight scenes work on her own steam with just a bit of the old wire-work. And boy does she do it. If there is ever to be another Michelle Yeoh her name will be Xu Jiao. My only quibble is that she is supposed to be American but speaks Mandarin like a properly schooled native and the only English she speaks is "daddy" and she prounces it like she's never called anyone "daddy" in her life. I am not sure if Vincent Zhao counts as a big-name martial arts actor, but of all the big name martial arts actors he is easily the best actor. He can do scholarly gravitas, he can do debonair and he can do concerned father. Louis Fan's character is a kind of Taoist answer to Alyosha Karamazov. He keeps a pet caterpillar, he won't suffer anyone to kill a mosquito, and as I mentioned earlier he risks getting run over by a motorcycle in order to save a duck. This is the guy that the abbot chooses to uphold the honor of Wudang by beating up strangers from all over China in a martial arts tournament. Go figure. The storyline puts him in some situations that had the potential to get damn maudlin but Louis Fan proved that he's more than just a stuntman who acts, he's an actor, and pulled it all off. Yang Mi, I'm less than thrilled with. For much of the fil she's got a schtick up her ass and that schtick got old quick. Next to her Vincent Zhao looks like little Tony Leung.
Corey Yuen's action choreography is, this time around, in the over-choreographed later Yuen Woo-ping mould rather than the rock 'em, sock 'em, knock 'em, knock 'em down, drag 'em out '80s mould. But there is a terseness to the action that is lacking in other Yuen Woo-ping pastiche's that I found pleasing. Also, Mr. Yuen, Corey that is, take's some subtle and affectionate satirical swipes at his model. This includes a some surprisingly lyrical moments. He finds a way for To Yu Hang to look look dangerous while performing moves straight out of your gramma's T'ai Ch'i set. He also even manages to make Yang Mi look good while she is fighting alongside Vincent Zhao. What he cannot do, however, is make Yang Mi look good during her big stunt. That's not really Yang Mi's fault either, I blame the egregiously sucky green-screenery. Later on, after some supernatural forces get unleashed there is some CGI which ranges from kind of shoddy to merely uninspired. The writing, in contrast, is pretty damn sharp. Chan Khan blends genres skillfully, the pacing is impeccable and the deftness with which plot twists and turns mirrors the agility of the performers on screen, and characters find time to form meaningful connections while the plot barrels on full steam ahead. It may not be high art but it is damn fine craftsmanship. This is not to say that the story leaves nothing to be desired; in true Taoist fashion, the plot's main weaknesses are it's main strengths. The emphasis is always on telling a rippin' adventure yarn so potentially interesting themes (how does ABC lil'Ning react to seeing China for the first time? How do the locals feel about a little girl who speaks perfect Chinese but dresses like a foreigner? How do the locals feel about Mr. Tang, an outsider with inisder's insights? Does Mr. feel caught between two worlds?) get ignored. This is not "Once upon A Time in China" Mr. Tang is not Bucktooth So and he certainly isn't 13th Aunt. Lil'Ning isn't Chen Zhen either. Never once does she dance around like Muhammed Ali, pumping her jab, while her hapless foe sinks ever deeper into his horse-stance.
If you've got PG-13 age kids with a hankering for some fantasy-adventure set in the mysterious orient, show 'em this picture. If you have fond memories of watching Indiana Jones as a kid or were ever a fan of the pulp adventure fiction that inspired those movies, watch this picture. If you are nostalgic for a time when Hong Kong could consistently put out entertaining genre films, watch this picture. "Great Wudang" does not seem like a future classic, but considering its current competition, who knows? The . I would have liked cameos for The RZA, The GZA, Ghost-Face Killah, Method Man, Inspectah-Deck, Raekwon, U-God and Masta Killa but you can't have everything. Tsui Hark should retire.<
Seriously tho', who's in the mood for a fun pop-corn movie with Chinese characteristics? Any takers? Oh good! Great Wudang, written by Chan Khan, directed by Patrick Leung, featuring action choreography by Corey Yuen, starring Vincent Zhao, Yang Mi, Louis Fan, To Yu Han, and fresh faced newcomer- Xu Jiao, and presented by our good friends at Mei-Ah Film Group and their mainland collaborators Xiang Xiao Flim Group-will undoubtedly be just what you're looking for.
Vincent Zhao plays Tang Yunlong an erudite martial-arts expert who has just come back to the mother country with his ABC daughter (that's Xu Jiao) in tow. Leaving his little girl in the car, Mr. Tang ducks into a laundry business which takes all of five seconds to be revealed to be a front. Downstairs is a luxuriously furnished den of iniquity, where Mr. Tang is asked to examine an antique sword. The sword is a fake and Mr. Tang, who has probably been in the West too long, refuses to give the dealer of said "antique", a dapperly dressed obvious Triad-type, any face whatsoever. He smashes the sword on the mantlepiece. The the dandyish Triad gets butt-hurt and shoots an elderly Chinese man, probably the den of iniquity's proprietar. He probably should have shot Mr. Tang first; in the time it took the Triad to gun down one old man, Mr. Tang has wrought fistic havoc on the Triad's entourage and is well on his way to escaping. Ever heard the one about how you should charge at a man with a gun but run from from a man with a knife? In the movies, martial-arts experts are equal to ten men with knives. The Triad unwisely pursues Mr. Tang into the den of iniquity's subterranean corridors, where a pistol provides nowhere near the advantage you'd think it would. Mr. Tang, hurts the Triad, badly, but perhaps unwisely, does not finish the Triad off. Machiavelli said that if you are going to do someone an injury, you had better do him a major one, people will try to avenge minor injuries, they cannot avenge injuries that are sufficiently major. Mr. Tang is content to leave his enemy with a wrecked up ankle. Readers can judge for themselves if that is major enough for a rich and ruthless Triad. Mr. Tang then rejoins his daughter in the car.
Now we're on a plane, a postal plane as it later turns out, but this movie takes place back in the day when men like Mr. Tang could wear whiskets and bow-ties and no one would look twice and there were no commercial airlines in China so this postal plane has passengers on it: an army officer, a batch of rowdy martial-arts enthusiasts and a chick (Yang Mi) in ethnicky garb. The alpha-male among the martial-artists, sensing that there is perhaps %*%$@ to be pulled (on a mail plane?) approaches Yang Mi and starts bragging about how he has been sent to represent his school at a prestigious tournament to be held at the Wudang monastery (you all remember Mount Wudang, don't you? It's like the Shaolin temple, only for Taoists. Frankly, its been a little underexposed, movie wise, as of late. Hopefully, "Great Wudang" will help set things right.) The army guy doesn't care for the alpha-male's behavior and tells him off. The alpha-male cracks him and continues to make his move. The chick then decides it's time to show him that it's wrong to assume that, just because she's riding all alone on a mail plane, she's a *@%@. She reveals her true colors as straight-up take-no-prisoners Jiang Hu type, straight out of a wuxia, in all her over-choreographed glory. She then beats up the alpha-male and all his entourage, she and Corey Yuen abuse slow-mo even worse then she abuses her foes, but she beats them up real good, nonetheless. While the melee is going down, the door of the plane is opened and all the mail starts flying out, along with the now unconscious alpha-male's invitation to the Wudang Monastery. **#%! Good thing Ms. Jiang Hu's signature weapon turns out to be a snazzy looking rope dart! Ms. Jiang Hu saves the invite but she does not return it to the alpha male. She keeps it for herself, by golly!
All of this and the opening credits haven't even started! Then they start. As they roll, we get a nice little montage of monks practicing martial-arts, monks doing their devotional duties and some landscape cinematography that would make David Attenborough proud. Clearly the filmmakers have learned something from all those art-house Wuxias that came out in the early 'aughts.
Then we're back to Mr. Tang and his little girl, whose name ends with Ning (I can't remember the rest), are now on a motor-cycle, complete with a sidecar for lil'Ning, tearing it up on some mountain road. A mama duck and her ducklings happen to be waddling across the way as daddy and daughter come barreling down it. Oh no! Thankfully Louis Fan (In the movie his honorable surname is Shui), complete with a Taoist's top-knot and clad in robes that look conspicuously more threadbare than those of the other monks and apparently engaged in dogsbody work while the rest of the monks are perfecting their Kung Fu intervenes acrobatically. Mr. Tang crashes his motorcycle but no one is hurt and the mama duck is safe. Now, all of the principle characters have been introduced and the story can begin in earnest.
And what is the story? Well, it kind of like "Enter the Dragon" meets the "Indiana Jones" franchise. Mr. Tang is there for the tournament. But he's not a competitor. He's entered his daughter. "Enter the Daughter?" Isn't that just a little bit reckless? Sending your daughter, your probably pre-pubescent daughter in to tangle with the roughest and toughest that the Wulin has to offer? Well let's just say Mr. Tang has other, seemingly unethical, fish to fry. Ms. Jiang Hu, also, is not all that interested in winning glory for her teachers and her fist-style and then going on to "rule the world of martial-arts" either. There's a treasure hunt going on, you see. Is Mr. Tang really that big of a jerk? Would he really endanger his daughter just so he could sneak around and steal from monks? You'll just have to watch it and find out.
Xu Jiao is not conventionally pretty, so the cinematographers and film editors don't give her any special treatment. She has not make all her fight scenes work on her own steam with just a bit of the old wire-work. And boy does she do it. If there is ever to be another Michelle Yeoh her name will be Xu Jiao. My only quibble is that she is supposed to be American but speaks Mandarin like a properly schooled native and the only English she speaks is "daddy" and she prounces it like she's never called anyone "daddy" in her life. I am not sure if Vincent Zhao counts as a big-name martial arts actor, but of all the big name martial arts actors he is easily the best actor. He can do scholarly gravitas, he can do debonair and he can do concerned father. Louis Fan's character is a kind of Taoist answer to Alyosha Karamazov. He keeps a pet caterpillar, he won't suffer anyone to kill a mosquito, and as I mentioned earlier he risks getting run over by a motorcycle in order to save a duck. This is the guy that the abbot chooses to uphold the honor of Wudang by beating up strangers from all over China in a martial arts tournament. Go figure. The storyline puts him in some situations that had the potential to get damn maudlin but Louis Fan proved that he's more than just a stuntman who acts, he's an actor, and pulled it all off. Yang Mi, I'm less than thrilled with. For much of the fil she's got a schtick up her ass and that schtick got old quick. Next to her Vincent Zhao looks like little Tony Leung.
Corey Yuen's action choreography is, this time around, in the over-choreographed later Yuen Woo-ping mould rather than the rock 'em, sock 'em, knock 'em, knock 'em down, drag 'em out '80s mould. But there is a terseness to the action that is lacking in other Yuen Woo-ping pastiche's that I found pleasing. Also, Mr. Yuen, Corey that is, take's some subtle and affectionate satirical swipes at his model. This includes a some surprisingly lyrical moments. He finds a way for To Yu Hang to look look dangerous while performing moves straight out of your gramma's T'ai Ch'i set. He also even manages to make Yang Mi look good while she is fighting alongside Vincent Zhao. What he cannot do, however, is make Yang Mi look good during her big stunt. That's not really Yang Mi's fault either, I blame the egregiously sucky green-screenery. Later on, after some supernatural forces get unleashed there is some CGI which ranges from kind of shoddy to merely uninspired. The writing, in contrast, is pretty damn sharp. Chan Khan blends genres skillfully, the pacing is impeccable and the deftness with which plot twists and turns mirrors the agility of the performers on screen, and characters find time to form meaningful connections while the plot barrels on full steam ahead. It may not be high art but it is damn fine craftsmanship. This is not to say that the story leaves nothing to be desired; in true Taoist fashion, the plot's main weaknesses are it's main strengths. The emphasis is always on telling a rippin' adventure yarn so potentially interesting themes (how does ABC lil'Ning react to seeing China for the first time? How do the locals feel about a little girl who speaks perfect Chinese but dresses like a foreigner? How do the locals feel about Mr. Tang, an outsider with inisder's insights? Does Mr. feel caught between two worlds?) get ignored. This is not "Once upon A Time in China" Mr. Tang is not Bucktooth So and he certainly isn't 13th Aunt. Lil'Ning isn't Chen Zhen either. Never once does she dance around like Muhammed Ali, pumping her jab, while her hapless foe sinks ever deeper into his horse-stance.
If you've got PG-13 age kids with a hankering for some fantasy-adventure set in the mysterious orient, show 'em this picture. If you have fond memories of watching Indiana Jones as a kid or were ever a fan of the pulp adventure fiction that inspired those movies, watch this picture. If you are nostalgic for a time when Hong Kong could consistently put out entertaining genre films, watch this picture. "Great Wudang" does not seem like a future classic, but considering its current competition, who knows? The . I would have liked cameos for The RZA, The GZA, Ghost-Face Killah, Method Man, Inspectah-Deck, Raekwon, U-God and Masta Killa but you can't have everything. Tsui Hark should retire.<
