Fearless

The new Jet Li film is called Fearless. It will be out in the states in August. If you like Jet Li, go see it. He claims this is his last WuShu film. WuShu is a genre of historical martial arts movie thatJ et Li has done a number of. Drunken Master and the Once Upon a Time in China series are perfect examples. A good WuShu film will have a number of action set-pieces tied together with a plot that keeps the story going. Fearless does this very well. Jet Li's portrayal of Huo Yuanjia is very different than his portrayal of another historical figure, Wong Fey Hung. They will look the same on the DVD covers, but Jet Li actually does some acting here. Huo is a darker, more selfish character who has some learning to do. As charming as Jet Li is you probably won't like Huo at the beginning on the film.

Ronnie Yu, who directed this, is back doing what he does best. I will try to forgive him for Freddy VS. Jason. Hong Kong directors never seem to work well within the Hollywood system. Another intersting fact is that Micheol Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, SuperCop) was originally in the film and her entire appearance is gone. They removed a subplot involving her character that trimmed the picture by 40 minutes. I'm all for shorter films, but I"m all for films with Michele Yeoh too. We'll never know if it is better shorter, but I'm guessing it is. I think the only films that are actually better longer are the Long of the Rings Director's Cut DVDs. I agree with John Waters. Films shouldn't be over about an hour and a half long and songs shouldn't be over 2 1/2 minutes long. Sure there are exceptions to this rule, but if the Ramones and Hank Williams (SR) can do it in that amount of time, maybe others should as well. Y'know... films used to be a lot shorter. Check out the running time of the Universal Horror pictures. Some are barely over an hour. Home video makes longer films easier to take, but almost every film I ever see, I think it could use about 20 minutes off the running time. Don't you think most movies could use a bit of tightening up? Movies shouldn't allow you to look at your watch or go to the bathroom. Action isn't required, but good dialogue and plot development to keep things moving along will do. Just no dead spots or boring sub plots-PLEASE! Also, as long as I'm yelling out to no one my cinema desires... Let's have more black and white movies. Remember films in the 60's when people made both back and white AND color movies? They made B&W films either to save money, or because it was an artistic choice. Would ED Wood be as good in color? Hell no!!! Would Good Night and Good Luck work in color??? NO!!!! Now, if I can get a black and white animated flick. Those just aren't made any more. In the 4th Urotsukidoji film, they start with some B&W animation and it looks kick ass. Oh, and I mean good old flat cel animation. No computer stuffs. Actually the cool looking B&W computer animation in Toy Story two was pretty good.