Against that backdrop are the brilliantly staged martial arts sequences that reminded me of how much I miss good old-fashioned, grounded, and realistic choreography as opposed to the overused wire-assisted flying and scaling up on walls. The fights that are strictly hand-to-hand combat without any weapons are some of the best from the veteran action director Sammo Hung (who is the best in the business alongside the more well-known Yuen Wo-ping). They are also some of his fiercest, which is justly fitting considering the untrammeled directness of the Wing Chun Fist that was founded on the notion that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The camerawork also very wisely goes back to basics in deftly shifting between medium-length spatial shots of combat with brutal close-ups of rapid fists and punches crunchily hitting faces without unnecessary slow-motion. The musical score by Kenji Kawai is also one of the more stirring in blending the tones of looming sadness with pulsating notes to complement the action scenes.
Then there is Donnie Yen. He is not that well known in the US and has been under the shadow of some of his contemporaries like Jet Li whom he had fought on screen as an antagonist in a few movies like Once Upon a Time in China II and Hero. Some may initially think that Yen is the only remaining actor to be tapped on since Jet Li has announced that he's leaving the traditional wushu epic genre but the extra, edgy ferocity Yen usually brings in his combat style actually makes him a more ideal fit to the role regardless. And because he so thoroughly embodies such a thoughtful, composed, and sane personality to ground the intense physical requirements of the character (he had to train intensively for four months to learn the Wing Chun fist) and later his individual crisis of questioning the value of his own martial arts, it is difficult for me to picture anyone else who could have played this role.
The supporting cast, including the ubiquitously reliable HK actor Simon Yam, is all solid but one true standout performance comes from Ka Tung Lam playing the cop turned interpreter who, in many ways, is the most complex and dynamic character in the movie and also presents the biggest departure from the conventions of the martial arts genre. When we first see him, we hardly like him as he seems like such an oily weasel who frowns upon martial arts and later a coward and a “lackey” as Ip calls him when he is actually helping recruit Chinese martial artists to fight for bags of rice. But Lam and the screenplay modulate his unlikely character to become the one who may be subtly moved by Ip and his dramatic arc gradually reveals his own depth of patriotic loyalty and even defiant heroism rather than just standing in a helpless position of watching his countrymen die.
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