Fearless; Jet Li's much-heralded martial arts swansong, is a biopic of Chinese folk hero Huo Yianjin, a man whose unparalleled fighting prowess roused his people from a slumber which had seen Westerners and neighbours alike dub them the 'Weak Men of Asia' in the early Twentieth Century. Li takes a producer's credit and has obviously poured himself into making this final action role his most memorable (and possibly to amend for Romeo Must Die).
But if Li wants this to be his legacy over the likes of Hero, his quality barometer is way off. How this film ended up feeling so Americanised is a mystery, but it has Hollywood's fingerprints all over the final cut; no heartstring is left untugged, no scenery shot wasted and no excuse for a great big scrap ignored.
Principal fault lies with director Ronny Yu. The fallacy of entrusting a would-be epic to the Bride of Chucky helmer is obvious throughout; no emotion is evoked by his handling of the drama of Yianjin's life, leaving it all to the cast - luckily, Dong Yong is excellent as Huo's childhood friend Nong Tinsun, Li himself... less so.
Yu follows the English GCSE essay method of film-making; start strong, end strong, punctuate the middle with moments of interest. In every case this means a big fight. And to the credit of Li and choreographer Yuen Wo Ping, they (mostly) work very well, the final dust-up being worth a star on its own. If you've had enough of the wirework of Crouching Tiger et al, the opening scene is inspiring. Unfortunately in an attempt to go for broke, Li's next bout, atop a wooden tower, happily discards irksome restraints like gravity and physics. It's when you realise that the flashy speed-adjusts, daft angles and irritating close-ups are reminiscent of Yu's Freddy vs. Jason that it becomes apparent that something is horribly wrong.
This film is sloppily made, continuity mistakes abound, the dialogue has either lost a lot in translation or was written by a monkey, and there's not an original thought to be found. Yianjin's character arc and the sermonising against conquering Westerners is lifted wholsale from The Last Samurai (!), in fact I'm convinced the "hero finds redemption in remote setting of abject beauty" mid-section was filmed on the same location, and the ending recalls the cheesiest moment of the vastly superior Gladiator (only cheesier).
Nonetheless Fearless has much to recommend to the less picky viewer and will doubtless be a huge hit; it looks great, the biopic standards are familiar but absorbing, and the majority of the action is phenomenal. If Jet Li really is retiring from the genre he has served so well, it is cinema's loss; as exciting a prospect as the much younger Tony Jaa may be, Li's lightning athleticism is still a thing of brutal beauty to behold. His acting skills appear too slim, on this showing, to sustain his position at the forefront of Asian cinema. And while the life of Huo Yianjin may be a fitting way to say goodbye, this telling of his story falls someway short of what it ought to be.