Philip Ng plays Ma Yongzhen, a humble country fellow who leaves his home to find work and prosperity in Shanghai in the early 1930s. Yongzhen is a supremely skilled martial artist, whose strength — especially that of his right arm and fist — are a serious force to be reckoned with. His mother gives Yongzhen a jade bracelet as a parting gift, reminding him to always think very seriously before using his physical skills in strength in combat, lest he kill someone.
The opening moments of the movie give fans a taste of the action to come as Yongzhen takes on some bad guys on the ship as it nears the Shanghai dock. Fight choreography was handled by Yuen Wo Ping (also did work on The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). During the first fight scene, I was a little weary of excessive wire-work (i.e., people being knocked unrealistically far back and so on), but this turned out not to be a problem for the film as a whole, as the combat stays well grounded and errs more towards a gritty, smash-mouth format. Note that it doesn’t get as “MMA” or grappling-heavy as Donnie Yen’s recent hit, Special ID.
For most folks — and I’ll include myself in that bunch — solid fight choreography is of paramount importance when watching “kung fu” movies. It’s easy to forgive poor acting or very familiar stories and themes if the action is good, but in the case of Once Upon A Time In Shanghai, I thought director Ching-Po Wong, writer Jing Wong, aforementioned Yuen Wo Ping, and the rest of the cast and crew did a good job of being both familiar and yet refreshing. Afterall, this movie is based on a 70’s Shaw Brothers classic, Boxer From Shantung, and even includes some of the original actors from that movie, and Ng’s likeness to Bruce is no coincidence.
All that said, once Yongzhen arrives in Shanghai, he meets up with his uncle who attempts to get him a job at a shipping facility. After beating the foreman in an arm-wrestling match, Yongzhen and his friends are hired at 80 cents per day, but things start to get “interesting” very soon after. They witness Long Qi, played by Andy On, kill a man and takeover his nightclub, and in the process Yongzhen quickly gets an introduction to the Shanghai underworld. It’s his discovery that the “Japanese tea” that he’s packing is actually opium that really gets Yongzhen upset, and he decides he can’t let this corruption and mob activity proceed because it’s tearing apart the city he thought was a place of dreams and prosperity.
The scene in which Yongzhen and Long Qi “meet” is quite good, and despite a fierce battle, or actually because of this battle, the two become like brothers over the next few days and weeks. Qi hires Yongzhen and his friends, and things seem to be going pretty well for Yongzhen. Michelle Hu’s character, who is the daughter of Master Tie, played by none other than the inimitable Sammo Kam-Bo Hung (who gets a little bit of fighting in late in the movie, too), is also becoming increasingly attracted to Yongzhen. But it’s Long Qi’s reputation and his incessant drive to become the true king of Shanghai that draws the ire of the Axe Trinity, and their Japanese allies. The Axe Trinity is a group of three gangs who have allied themselves against Long Qi. As you would expect, at some point, sh*t is going to hit the fan and blood will be shed, you just don’t know who is going to survive. The end result is a pretty edge-of-your-seat finish that has some potent drama as well as thrilling fights.
The home release is packed in the familiar single disc format with a removable cardboard cover and a typical case underneath. The film is presented in 16:9 format with DTS-HD 5.1 for both Mandarin and English, as well as Stereo 2.0 in both languages, but only English subtitles are offered. The image quality, technically, is great and I can’t say I noticed any issues. The film is presented with an almost persistent gray overtone that I believe was done for two reasons: to highlight the jade bracelet or certain elements of a scene, and two, because this is a 1930s noir/gangster type movie. At no point is the film completely “black and white” or is this grayscale used too much, but it’s certainly noticeable and some viewers may be a little irked by it. Ultimately, I was fine with it although I’m not sure it made me appreciate the movie any more, or less, for that matter. As for audio, I went as always with the 5.1 Mandarin track with subtitles and found the placement, font, and timing of the subs to be comfortably in sync with the voices.
As for extra features, there isn’t much. The disc is front-loaded with three other Well Go trailers that can be skipped, and you can view these HD trailers at anytime from the main menu. As far as “real” extras, you get the trailer for this movie, in HD, and it runs just over a minute and a half. There is also a Making Of feature which is neat, but super brief and only includes production footage with no narration or interviews or anything. It runs 4m39s, is in SD, and jumps around pretty randomly. It’s definitely worth watching, but something more elaborate would have been much appreciated. You do get to see Wo Ping at work though, which is really neat, and all three main stars (Ng, On, Hung) get minor injuries during filming which is surprising to see, but thankfully they weren’t badly hurt.
With that, let’s get to the summary…