This one totally passed me by last year, but I friend told me they were watching Fearless with Jet Li (Or as the Americans would call it "Jet Li's Fearless").

And it is quite good. The character Li plays is an arrogant one who wants the fame and fortune of being a fighter but comes to realise that martial arts are for more than that. Sometimes the arrogance puts you off him... after all you're not supposed to be hating the lead character in a movie.  But I suppose that's the kind of person he is! This character flaw comes from not being allowed to learn the martial arts as a child because his parents feel he is too poorly.

It is only when I went to read a little about this film online that I saw in Hong Kong the film is called "Legend of a Fighter".  Woah there horsey! There was a Legend of a Fighter back in 1982 which by all accounts is a classic piece of movie history. I had it on DVD and I'm kicking myself because I never got to see it before it was thieved. Reading about both films, they DO seem to tell the same tale.

The tale is that of China in the turn on the 1900's being exposed to more and more foreign influences and China's skills at fighting being ridiculed. The main character Hua Yuanjia (or Huo Yuan Chia depending on the movie and whose subtitles you're following) grows up and leaves his local town in shame after his arrogance causes him to go over the top and essentially commit murder.

He finds himself in Japan (I think, they could have been speaking anything, my subtitles were still in English ) whereby a farming community takes him in and cares for him for a couple of years. A blind girl teaches him a more spiritual side of the world. He eventually returns to his home town to pay respect to his parents and just about everyone that died before he left and finds the western challenge to Chinese fighting skills.

This ties in nicely to the start of the movie where he's fighting in a tournament against a British Boxer, a German (I think) lance fighter and a French (or Spanish) swordman.  Later (in the film, but earlier in the time line) he takes on a giant of a man in a wrestling ring, a fight which is well executed and doesn't just feature Jet Li dancing around and the western wrestler lumbering around like a fool.

This film suffers from either a bad script or some severe chop chop action in the cutting room. The film seems to flow for a while then leap to somewhere else. Especially towards the end.

The finale, the big fight with a Japanese champion also left me disappointed

It's a decent looking movie (although I didn't realise it was a 2006 one, to me it looked at least a decade old). And the fighting and wire aerobic nonsense is well executed.

I'll give it a 3/5, because it wasn't compelling enough and felt rushed.

I'm gonna have to find me a copy of the 1982 Legend of a Fighter DVD now damn it!!!