Reviews

August 15, 2001

Almost twenty years ago, Tsui Hark made Zu Warriors, the first Kung-Fu film filled with special effects and has become an instant classic. Twenty years later, Tsui Hark has done it again by presenting us the second Zu movie. Not a sequel, not a prequel, but an updated version of Tsui Hark's twenty year old imagination and fantasy. Except Sammo Hung, no one from the first one ever made to this film and the special effect is no longer in the same level.

In the mythical Zu Mountains, immortal beings live in many mountains, rocks floating in the sky. In Mt. Kun Lun, Master Hu Yue (Cecilia Cheung), is disturbed by the emotion with his pupil Xuan Tian Zong (Ekin Cheng) and cannot practice any further. Foreseeing the coming of the evil force and knowing she is unable to defend, she hands over Kun Lun's most sacred weapons Sun Moon Golden Wheels to Xuan Tian Zong and drives him away. Soon after, Kun Lun is destroyed by the evil force along with Master Hu Yue. Two hundred years later, the evil force starts to attack Mt. E Mei. With the help from Xuan Tian Zong, master of E Mei, E Mei Zhen Ren (Sammo Hung), leads his students to push the evil force into a cave, but only discovers the cave actually contains the energy they are looking for and can help the evil getting stronger. Meanwhile, Xuan Tian Zong discovers that one of the students, Lu Ying Qi (Cecilia Cheung), looks exactly like Master Hu Yue. Later he knows that she is a regeneration of Master Hu Yue without any memory of her previous life. Jointed force with Mt. Wu Tai, E Mei Zhen Ren orders his first pupil Dan Zhen Zi (Louis Koo) to guard the entrance of the cave and asks Lu Ying Qi and Chang Kong Wu Ji (Wu Jing) to fuse their Purple Sword and Green Sword together to defeat the evil force. Fusion of the swords fails and Chang Kong Wu Ji is killed. E Mei Zhen Ren regenerates Chang Kong Wu Ji but only creates Lian Xing, a human with no magic power and memory. He needs to enlighten himself in order to complete the fusion. E Mei Zhen Ren transforms his position and his Nan Ming Li Flame to Xuan Tian Zong and travels to another world to look for the universe force. Meanwhile, Dan Zhen Zi is seduced and controlled by Red Body (Li Hsi-Lei) and become one of the evils …

Though Zu Mountains are mythical, Zu is a real place. It is a short term for Sichuan Province of China. E Mei and Wu Tai are real mountains, but Kun Lun is not although there is a mountain range with the same name.

Throughout the film, the audiences were bombarded by fantastic special effects. I have to admit I have not seen so many visible special effects in any other film, including Episode I. If you think some of the CG stuffs are not real, like the Zu mountains and the clouds, you are absolutely right. Tsui Hark has never intended to make them real. What you have seen is done based on traditional Chinese paintings. They are real, but only in the fantasy world. Other special effects are also jaw-dropping, like Dan Zhen Zip's wings, Tian Long Han, made of seventy-two blades, the Nine Lotus of Mt. Wu Tai, and Purple Green Twin Swords.

Some audiences may think the plot is a bit hard to swallow, because there are many missing links between scenes. This is actually the trademark of Tsui Hark. He never wanted to tell you every single step of a story. Whatever he thinks is unnecessary, he just omits it completely, leaving the audiences to piece the story together. Actually, a slow mellow drama will only slow the film down and a slowed down The Legend of Zu will be very boring and painful to watch.

While making the film, Tsui Hark once told the media he wanted to make China's Star Wars. But I think it is very inappropriate to compare this two. Unlike Episode I, there is no Jar Jar Binks and you are not going to get bored if you can forget about trying to make scene for everything. Cecilia Cheung and Ekin Cheng are the main stars of the film and they handled their roles just fine. Zhang Ziyi only played a very minor role in the film. She is Cheng Tian Le a human general who lead her army of Zu to fight another group of human army. The teaser poster showed up in Cannes early this year and the trailer you watched online is very misleading. Her story is not much related to the main plot and her romance with Duan Lei (Patrick Tam), one of the student of E Mei, does not work very well. This is the biggest weakness of the film. People will be disappointed if they are expecting to see more Zhang Ziyi. In this film she is "ugly" than ever. Her costume is colorless and her face is covered by dirt, just like a crash survivor.

Though it is Tsui Hark production and even got Yuen Wo-Ping in the team. The Legend of Zu can hardly be called a martial-art film. Fighting is done almost completely through the magic ways, or more precisely, by computer. The a few minutes long battle between Zhang Ziyi and Wu Jing is the only real Kung Fu fight in the film.

The Legend of Zu is a masterpiece in its own way, which filled with fantastic views and great energy. It may not be a big break through for Tsui Hark, but it definitely going to be one of the films which is unique and unforgettable.

The ending, which I am not going to give it away, leaves the door open for a sequel. In fact, Tsui Hark is already planning on that. However, do not expect to see it in the next one or two years, because Tsui Hark is currently working on Book Sword Love Hate based on the same novel by Louis Cha and his next project might be Journey to the West based on the a centuries old novel written by Wu Chengen. In addition, there are other projects are waiting for him, like Ironman 28 and Master Q II.