| Fearless | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Traditional | 霍元甲 |
| Simplified | 霍元甲 |
| Mandarin | Huò Yuán Jiǎ |
| Cantonese | Fok3 Jyun4 Gaap3 |
| Directed by | Ronny Yu |
| Produced by | Ronny Yu Jet Li Yeung Bo-ting William Kong Chui Bo-chu Han Sanping |
| Written by | Chris Chow Christine To Wang Bin Li Feng |
| Starring | Jet Li Dong Yong Nakamura Shidō II Collin Chou Betty Sun |
| Music by | Shigeru Umebayashi |
| Cinematography | Poon Hang-sang Ray Wong |
| Editing by | Virginia Katz Richard Learoyd |
| Distributed by | Edko Films (Hong Kong) China Film Group (China) UIP (Europe) Rogue Pictures (US) |
| Release date(s) | January 26, 2006 |
| Running time | 105 minutes (Theatrical cut) 140 minutes (Director's cut) |
| Country | China |
| Language | Mandarin Cantonese Japanese English |
| Gross revenue | US$68,072,848 |
Fearless, known in Chinese as Huo Yuanjia and Jet Li's Fearless in the United Kingdom and the United States, is a 2006 film directed by Ronny Yu and starring Jet Li. It is loosely based on the life of Huo Yuanjia, a famous Chinese martial artist who challenged foreign fighters in highly publicised events, restoring pride and nationalism to China at a time when Western imperialism and Japanese manipulation were eroding the country during the last few years before the birth of the Republic of China. Li stated in an interview that this film is his last wushu martial arts epic, a point also made in the film's television promotions and other publicity.
Fearless was released on January 26, 2006 in Hong Kong, on June 23, 2006 in the United Kingdom, and on September 22, 2006 in the United States.[1]
Contents |
The film starts with Huo Yuanjia fighting three Westerners: a British boxer, a Belgian lancer, and a Spanish fencer. Huo defeats all three of them and has a flashback before the next fight with Anno Tanaka from Japan.
Huo Yuanjia watches his father Huo Endi teaching students martial arts and wants to participate, but his father is concerned about his asthma and refuses to allow him to practice martial arts. Huo Yuanjia then sees his father in a leitai match with another martial artist named Zhao, who won the match dishonorably by retaliating when Huo Endi showed mercy on the final blow. Huo Yuanjia felt humiliated by his father's defeat and vowed to regain his family's honor and pride. He practiced martial arts secretly behind his father's back. As the years passed, Huo Yuanjia defeated several opponents in leitai matches and became one of the most famous martial artists in Tianjin. However, as he became increasingly successful and popular, he also became more arrogant and ruthless towards his opponents. His late father, however, advocated the practice of showing mercy and not doing any serious physical harm to opponents.
When a rival martial arts master named Qin Lei injures one of his followers, Huo feels insulted and confronts Qin at the latter's birthday party. The confrontation escalates into a fight between Huo and Qin, in which Huo emerges as the victor by killing Qin with a fatal blow to the chest. However, Qin's godson seeks vengeance on Huo and kills Huo's mother and daughter in revenge. Guided by fury, Huo goes to Qin's house and Qin's godson admits to the murders before committing suicide. Later, Huo learns that it was his follower who had provoked Qin earlier, which resulted in his beating from Qin.
Overwhelmed with grief and shame, Huo flees Tianjin and wanders aimlessly for many miles. A disheveled, greying wanderer, he nearly drowns in a river, but is saved by Granny Sun and her blind granddaughter Yueci. They bring him back to their village and Huo, guided by their simple acts of kindness, begins to learn the value of kindness and mercy.
In 1907, Huo returns to Tianjin and sees the changes that have taken place in his absence. He apologizes to the family of Qin and reconciles with his businessman friend, Nong Jinsun, whom he offended earlier. He challenges the American wrestler, Hercules O'Brien, who had been making headlines by defeating Chinese martial artists and calling the Chinese "sick men of the East", and defeats O'Brien. He saves O'Brien from being impaled by some nails on the side of the ring that had become exposed during the fight and wins the appreciation of O'Brien, who names Huo the victor. Huo's fame begins to spread with successive challenges with other foreign fighters. In 1909, with funding from Nong Jinsun, he founds Chin Woo Athletic Association in Shanghai.
The members of the foreign chamber of commerce fear that Huo's victories might fan anti-foreign sentiments in the Chinese people and thus become a disadvantage to them. They propose a match between Huo and four foreign champions. Huo takes up the challenge, even though it is an unfair one. Before the matches, Huo meets the Japanese champion Tanaka for tea and strikes up a friendship with him.
Back to September 14, 1910, Huo faces Tanaka in a titanic battle. In the first round, they fight with their weapons of choice. Huo uses a three-section staff and Tanaka uses a katana. The first round is a draw. Before the next round, Huo drinks from a teacup containing poison, which had replaced his original teacup. In the second round involving unarmed combat, Huo suddenly has difficulty in breathing and loses his strength. He collapses and starts coughing blood, dying from arsenic poisoning. Tanaka and Huo's supporters immediately demand that the match be halted and postponed, but Huo replies that he wants it to continue since he is going to die soon. Huo is dominated by Tanaka but he manages to deliver a blow to Tanaka's chest, similar to the one he used on Qin. Huo could have killed Tanaka with that blow but he refrained from doing so and collapsed. Tanaka declares Huo the victor moments before Huo's death. A scene then shows Huo's ghost training in the field and Yueci runs towards him. The film ends as Huo smiles at her.
The film was originally approximately 140 minutes long, but to fit market demand, it was cut to 105 minutes, and scenes by Michelle Yeoh and a fight between Jet Li and a Thai boxer, portrayed by Somluck Kamsing, were removed. A special release of the film in Thailand in March 2006 reinserted the scenes with Somluck (but not Michelle Yeoh), making its new running time approximately 110 minutes. In January 2007, Ronny Yu's original 140-minute director's cut was given an official DVD release in Hong Kong, featuring the full Michelle Yeoh subplot as well as the fight with Somluck Kamsing.
Within the Somluck Kamsing scene, there are two different endings. In the director's cut, the fight ends after Huo Yuanjia stops the Thai boxer from falling head first. In an alternate scene, the Thai boxer continues to fight after this and Huo appears to kill him with the exterminating blow, only to see that he had resisted, in which the boxer realizes this and ends the fight.
Universal released the full 140-minute director's cut on DVD in North America in July 2008.[2] The released DVD, however, contained 2 discs and has been reported to errantly contain both the existing U.S. theatrical version and the existing unrated version and not the actual director's cut on either of the discs. However, many people were able to get replacement copies that had the director's cut after sending a complaint on their website.
On December 2008, Universal released the Blu-ray version of the film, which contains the three versions (Theatrical, Unrated, and Director's Cut) in a single disc.
There are many differences between the theatrical and director's cut.
Comparisons can be drawn between this film and one of Jet Li's earlier films, Fist of Legend. The character of Huo Yuanjia is the sifu of Jet Li's character in Fist of Legend, Chen Zhen; in the earlier film, Chen Zhen returns to China from Japan to avenge Huo, who has been murdered as depicted in Fearless. The films also explore similar thematic material: in Fearless, Huo eventually learns that the true purpose of martial arts is self-improvement and self-development, while combat with others is useful only as a means of testing one's progress, and he teaches this lesson to his Japanese opponent. In Fist of Legend, Chen is told the same lesson by his own samurai opponent, who claims that martial arts are a means of improving one's physical health, but if one wants to kill a man, then the best way is to use a gun.
In an earlier film Fist of Fury (formerly known as The Chinese Connection), Bruce Lee portrayed Huo's student Chen Zhen, who seeks revenge for his poisoning. This film was the archetype of Fist of Legend.
The 1982 Hong Kong film Legend of a Fighter is also based on the life of Huo.
The weapon fight between Huo, armed with a three-section staff, and Anno Tanaka, armed with a katana, is similar to the final showdown in Fist of Fury, where Bruce Lee counters a katana-wielding Riki Hashimoto with a nunchaku.
The film holds a rating of 73% on Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus being, "Fearless is a brilliantly choreographed, beautifully filmed endcap to Li's quarter decade of epic martial arts glory."[4] Empire gave two stars out of five with a verdict stating, "Despite impressive, CG-light action sequences and an absorbing story which certainly stands another re-telling, director Ronny Yu barely elevates this above the level of a direct-to-video fightfest. Hero or Crouching Tiger it ain't."[5]
Fearless opened in Hong Kong on January 26, 2006. The film played to blockbuster business, eventually grossed an exceptional $30,201,600 HKD by the end of its run.[6]
On September 22, 2006, Fearless was released in 1,806 North American cinemas under the title Jet Li's Fearless. In its opening weekend, it placed 2nd at the box office to the sequel to Jackass, grossing $10,590,244 USD ($5,863 per screen). It was Jet Li's seventh film in a row to open to over $10 million.[7] The film went on to gross $24,633,730 USD by the end of its North American run - making it the sixth highest grossing non-English language foreign film in the United States to date[8] - and its total worldwide gross is $68,072,848 USD.[9][10]
The film's soundtrack was composed by Shigeru Umebayashi.
Taiwanese Asian pop superstar and actor Jay Chou wrote and sang the theme song to this movie, also named "Huo Yuanjia". In the song, Chou sings in a falsetto voice for a few segments.
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