Starring Vincent Zhao, Zhou Xnun, Andy On, and Guo Xiaodong, with special appearances by Jay Chou, David Carradine, and Michelle Yeoh, True Legend’s cast is loaded with proven talent. Indeed, the acting in True Legend was very good, and the fight scenes were nicely done from a physical talent standpoint. There are numerous fight scenes and of a variety of types — many versus many, many versus one, one versus one, weapons and no weapons, and so on.
The story contains a lot of pretty good material, centered heavily on relationships, family, and redemption. I didn’t think the story was very well told, however, and roughly seventy-five percent through the movie it takes a rather large shift. Some of the smaller transitions leading up to that point — and even one or two after — weren’t smooth or natural. I also really struggled to get past some of the creative decisions. Besides the excessive use of CG, green screen, and wires, True Legend has a supernatural element to it, at least with one major character. Combined, these disagreeable aspects darn near overwhelm the good acting, story (despite sketchy story-telling), and action scenes.
To get more specific, True Legend is about one of the fabled Ten Tigers of Canton, So Chan, although in True Legend it is subtitled as Su Can. Regardless, Su is a general during the late 1800s, possibly early 1900s. The opening sequence sees him leading his soldiers to a successful battle against a militia fortress to free a prince. Once freed, the prince offers Su a job as governor of a territory as thanks, but Su refuses and decides to leave the army. He puts in a good word for his comrade and step brother, Yuan Lie (Andy On) who has always felt he lived in Su’s shadow.
Fast forward several years and Su is living happy with Yuan Ying (Xun Zhou), Yuan’s sister, and their young son. Trouble comes to town one day when Lie, who has learned the Five Deadly Venoms fist, decides to kill his step father, i.e., Su’s dad, who murdered Lie’s biological father in honorable combat years before. This of course begins a brother versus brother rivalry with Ying and their son stuck in the middle. Defeated, Su barely survives and he and Ying manage to escape while their son remains captive to Lie. Now Su must heal and train so he can defeat Lie and his goons and reclaim his son.
That would seem to be the complete story, but the last quarter of the film is almost a story on its own as Su begins to develop the Drunken Fist. Regarding the primary portion, again the acting and fight scenes are pretty good, and the Chinese countryside gorgeous, but the amount of CG/green screen and wire work felt really excessive. Personally I prefer a more traditional martial arts film, even if those are common, and even within Woo-ping’s own past. His use of CG for Lie’s Five Deadly Venom fist was downright silly and embarrassing. Lie’s skin goes from an ashen white to an unnatural black color, with veins popping out in his arms and neck, and black smoke emanating from his hands. For what had been a pretty believable martial arts film to that point, I thought what they did with Lie was a mistake.
The latter portion of True Legend suddenly turns into a Jet Li’s Fearless, Ip Man 1 & 2, Return of Chen Zhen story. In other words, foreigners have come to China to fight in grueling arena battles and the Chinese are getting beaten. You can see where this is going, Su ends up fighting in this deathmatch and uses his Drunken Fist.
Overall, my complaints with True Legend are just barely kept in check with what I liked about it. Whereas other recent martial arts movies that I have reviewed were pretty one-sided — in terms of just being excellent all around — True Legend walked a fine line between good and bad, but managed to avoid being great or awful, too.
On Blu-ray
True Legend on Blu-ray is presented in widescreen 1080p with 5.1 Mandarin audio or stereo English. English and French subtitles are included, too. From a presentation standpoint, True Legend is a crisp looking movie, but you can clearly see the overuse of green screen and wires used. In one of the extra features, Woo-ping does mention he likes to film the impact of the hits more so than the hits themselves, so perhaps it’s no wonder so many wire scenes were used. Regardless, True Legend is a great looking movie due in part to the pretty Chinese locales used.
Several extra features were included:
Featurettes:
-Drunken Fist Master (SD, 3m54s) – A quick interview session with Woo-ping and his screenwriter as they talk about their goals for the characters and the relationships between them.
-Militia’s Fortress (SD, 6m5) – Production footage of the opening sequence that featured a very interesting fortress. A couple of the actors briefly chime in, as well as the crew, and they talk about creating this scene.
-Thousand Buddha Cliff (SD, 3m55s) – Su’s dream sequences, most of them, were based on this massive Buddha statue where he encounters the God of Wushu. Cast and crew briefly share some thoughts on this while production footage is shown.
-Capturing Classical China (SD, 3m28s) – The Executive Producer and Writer talk about the significance of the different locales and environments used.
-Choreographed Drunkeness (SD, 6m39s) – Another behind the scenes or production featurette that shows a little of Su’s training for the role.
There are also two ‘Storyboard To Scene’ features that include a side by side comparison of the storyboard sketch and what the actual film looked like:
-Opening Sequence (HD, 1m26s)
-Brothers Versus Brother (HD, 1m9s)
-“Axis of Evil” by Shadow Bureau (HD, 3m54s) – A music video that shows clips from the movie set to this song. I really don’t know why it’s included here.
-International Trailer (HD, 2m8s)
To the summary…