Jet Li's Fearless

Martial Arts Action with Soul: Jet Li's Best in Years
[The following review refers to the 104 minute version of `Fearless' released in Japan in March, 2006, starring Jet Li.]

`Fearless" is inspired by the life of Huo Yuan Jia, real-life Chinese martial arts master. Jet Li plays this legendary figure, whose martial arts style and fearless fight helped the people in China regain their pride in the early 20th century when China was intimidated and humiliated by the growing Western and Japanese powers.

Well, so much for the history. Now, let's talk about actions. In `Fearless' Jet Li has shown his best performance since the days he did `Once Upon A Time In China' playing the role of Wong Fei Hung, another legendary hero in China, and the fight scenes (choreographed by Yuen Woo Ping) are all fantastic, sometimes visceral, and sometimes graceful, and always powerful. Good and smooth editing and gorgeous production designs also help greatly to create the background.

[JET LI'S PHILOSOPHY] After the opening...

This version of the film is a travesty.
When I first saw this movie (the 104 minute version we have here) in the theatre I enjoyed it very much, but I left with the nagging feeling that something wasn't right about it. A minor quibble was that a good part of the film's main climactic scene took place right at the beginning, but more bothersome to me was the fact that the film didn't seem sure of itself-- like it couldn't decide if it wanted to be a run-of-the mill martial arts picture, or a telling of a historical tale with an underlying philosophical message. Structurally it came across primarily as the former, but watching this in the theatre I had the nagging feeling that something much deeper was inside longing to emerge. For one thing, the 104 minute version contains very choppy editing. Great spans of history pass along in a flash. For example, during the scene where Huo is living in the village, years are supposed to have passed for him there, however one gets the feeling watching this that it has only been a...

How to Fix the Problem with the Directors Cut...
Don't miss out on a great movie because of Universal Studios mistake!

It has been confirmed that JET LI'S FEARLESS: DIRECTOR'S CUT, Universal's highly anticipated re-release of Ronny Yu's Huo Yuanjia biopic promising nearly 40 minutes of additional footage is missing the director's cut. Released July 8th, it promised three versions of the movie, one of which was supposed to be the complete two hour and 21 minute director's cut. However, upon inspecting the two-disc release purchased from Walmart today both discs contain only 103-minute international and theatrical versions. Other readers have been e-mailing and posting messages on this site stating the same problem which suggests this defect is widespread.

Additionally, both discs appear to function erratically in my player. Disc two displays nothing but pixels and disc one periodically will not start up. I was only able to confirm the contents of disc two by using a disc burning tool. Both discs appear to be...

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