Fearless

[GeneChing]

Yup. Fearless. For the week of the premiere, Fearless is paying the bills around here. Of course, I hope the film has a strong opening, because that's really important for the immediate future promotion of all martial arts films and Asian films. I also hope that all of you will take a moment to click through the topmost banner link, because like with any ad, there's a click-through tracker, and we want to show Focus Features some solid click-through rates so they will continue to work with us with special promotions like our autographed poster raffle.

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[GeneChing]

Here's hoping for a strong box office opener. They've been trying to keep the fact that Fearless is subtitled very quiet because that always detracts from U.S. box office numbers. The opening weekend is critical.

[The Willow Sword]

Well i went to see it today and i liked it very much. i had no idea that fearless was the back story to fist of legend. i didnt mind the subtitles at all, i kind of expect it with asian film releases in the USA.

i saw a few previews that i am interested in . Mel gibsons "Apocalypto" and chow yun fat " the curse of the golden flower". both looked like they would be worth seeing

as for people not liking it, i mean yeah its no crouching tiger or Hero or even fist of legend(thought it was better than fist of legend actually) but it was still a good film and i liked the choreography.

cheers,TWS

[SimonM]

As long as you don't go in the teatre doors expecting Black Mask, Enter the Dragon or Rush Hour 2 "Fearless" is one of the best martial-arts related movies I've ever seen (top three at the very least).

The problem is that Fearless is a relatively serious drama about the martial artist Huo Yuen Jia. It is just not a "Kung Fu movie" per say though.

[bung bo]

I enjoyed the movie a lot. I think the scenes cut (although not really knowing what there were) took a lot out of it. Someone earlier said he thought that it was too much story stuffed into a small time-slot...for real. There was room for expansion in the village scenes.

I thought the fight scenes were great, with only a little wire-work. I got engulfed in the story (usually doesn't happen to me for a martial arts film...then again it was mostly a drama.) I liked that it was subtitled and not English-dubbed. That woul've been really corny having everybody talk like a superhero. Some people actually walked out because of that.

[GeneChing]

******* took the box this weekend with $28,106,000, nearly three times that of Fearless, which came in at $10,564,000. That's not a great opening, sad to say. Compare to Hero ($18,004,319), it's more on par with Unleashed ($10,900,901). It's much stronger than The Protector ($5,034,180).

We'll have another Fearless article up very soon, which not only discusses the cut scenes (including the cut Thai boxer fight which is apparently only being shown in Thailand and in the Director's cut), it'll have a still from Michelle Yeoh's cut scene. This article will explain a lot about the underlying story that most of you probably missed.

[lunghushan]

Yeah it seemed too choppy ... like bad editing and not enough character development. Either that or Jet Li is a bad actor (or both).

The fight scenes seemed to be pretty good, though. Not too much wire work.

[Li Kao]

Not a bad opening weekend -- though Fearless isn't competing against any blockbusters at the moment either. Still, taking the number 2 slot on its opening weekend is pretty respectable and hopefully it will stay strong for a few weeks before starting to lose some steam. It's a little disheartening to me that ******* Number Two is the film that beat out Fearless, but not that suprising either -- I suppose in the pop culture we live in today, masochistic shenanigans trumps martial arts.

Gene, I still think you had the best interview with Jet that I've read so far in regards to Fearless, but I'll link another one for everyone to check out:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/interviews/jet_li_fearless.html

It focuses on some of the key elements about Fearless that differentiate it from most martial arts films and the aspects about the movie that I enjoyed the most:

1. There was no "villian" per se ... the true enemy was Yuanjia's own arrogance and motivations.

2. Foreigners were not demonized in an absolute sense -- yes, there were some dubious ones, but the Japanese fighter was very noble and honorable.

3. The moviations behind why people train in martial arts and how they use their training -- what is the ultimate goal of martial arts, etc.

I think alot of good discussion could be had about these various topics...

On a side note -- I'm still hoping to one day see the cut scenes with Michelle Yeoh. Also, Nathan Jones is sure making the rounds these days -- was strange seeing him on the screen twice in a week -- first in the Protector and now in this movie. Kung Fu/action movies have always used the "big lummox" type of characters before as villians -- Bruce Lee had Kareem and Bolo, Jackie had Billy Kiss, Takashi Miike recently used Bob Sapp, District B13 had the Yeti (Jerome Paquatte) -- I guess it makes for the classic David vs. Goliath scenario.

[Wu-Tan-Nan]

Hi everyone!
I was just wondering if any of you knew what kind of Kung Fu style Jet Li was using during this movie? Did he actualy use Huo Yuan Jia's Mizongyi?

[iwushu]

I went to watch Fearless this weekend, knowing that this is Jet Li's closing epic, I was expecting a fantastic fight. I must say I was really surprised by the heart of the film, the meaning of Wushu, or more exactly, Jet Li's vision and philosophy of martial art. The only other master that has ever brought the moview to such depth was Bruce Lee. Hat off to Jet Li, for his willingness to communicate the powerful message with his film.

Jet Li brought the definition of power to a new level, through his almost ballet like kung fu moves, he chose to tell a story of human being, falling from the hunger of fame to the rising of self-respect and soul searching. I was so inspired by this film that I actually went to start a podcast with my Wushu friend, who is a senior editor of wushu magazine in China. We did the podcast in Mandarin Chinese, and I am hoping to translate it into English soon. I would really appreciate your feedback!

Thank you for providing this space for us to discuss a great film like this!

Abby (iwushu.net)

[iwushu]

It's a great article, I am looking forward to the uncut DVD which is more than 2 hours long...

The movie also received "two thumbs up" from ebert and roper show, I believe this is probably the first to Jet Li's film. The other one is Hero, but I guess it's really a Zhang Yimou's film and honestly, that movie was more of a motion colorful images with little or no story....

Not a bad opening weekend -- though Fearless isn't competing against any blockbusters at the moment either. Still, taking the number 2 slot on its opening weekend is pretty respectable and hopefully it will stay strong for a few weeks before starting to lose some steam. It's a little disheartening to me that ******* Number Two is the film that beat out Fearless, but not that suprising either -- I suppose in the pop culture we live in today, masochistic shenanigans trumps martial arts.

Gene, I still think you had the best interview with Jet that I've read so far in regards to Fearless, but I'll link another one for everyone to check out:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/interviews/jet_li_fearless.html

It focuses on some of the key elements about Fearless that differentiate it from most martial arts films and the aspects about the movie that I enjoyed the most:

1. There was no "villian" per se ... the true enemy was Yuanjia's own arrogance and motivations.

2. Foreigners were not demonized in an absolute sense -- yes, there were some dubious ones, but the Japanese fighter was very noble and honorable.

3. The moviations behind why people train in martial arts and how they use their training -- what is the ultimate goal of martial arts, etc.

I think alot of good discussion could be had about these various topics...

On a side note -- I'm still hoping to one day see the cut scenes with Michelle Yeoh. Also, Nathan East is sure making the rounds these days -- was strange seeing him on the screen twice in a week -- first in the Protector and now in this movie. Kung Fu/action movies have always used the "big lummox" type of characters before as villians -- Bruce Lee had Kareem and Bolo, Jackie had Billy Kiss, Takashi Miike recently used Bob Sapp, District B13 had the Yeti (Jerome Paquatte) -- I guess it makes for the classic David vs. Goliath scenario.

[shiyonghua]

this is probably my ignorance coming through, but I would guess that he was not using strictly Mizongyi for two reasons:

1) I'm not sure Li has trained in that particular style

2) In the same way that Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon didn't highlight the Wudang styles . . . its a movie, and they tend use flashy, wide techniques that are a combination of numerous styles

again, its just a guess

[Jimbo]

I enjoyed Fearless. It actually found it a bit more reminiscent of Legend of a Fighter than Fist of Legend. I liked the story and the overall message of the movie better than I did the fighting. I found it very cool that the village scenes used what seemed a different Chinese ethnic group (were they Miao?). However, it seems to me that Jet Li isn't always convincing when he plays a "bad guy" or a guy with a bad attitude; just like in The One, when he acts "bad" or arrogant, he seems like a nice guy trying to act mean. But the message of the movie was very clear, or should be.

I also found it interesting that Nathan Jones (who played the strongman O'Brien) is in two movies out at the same time. A few years ago he was in WWE but never panned out as a wrestler, but he seems to be doing quite well for himself in movies (he was "killed" by Brad Pitt in Troy).

[MightyB]

In order to ensure that these types of movies will continue to be released in America, it's very important that ticket sales are high. Crouching Tiger was a huge success, but the Promise and House of Flying Daggers both were box office bombs. If Fearless flops, then there will be little incentive to release these types of movies in the US.

You vote with your dollars at the movies. Just something to think about.

The B

[Su Lin]

Will be watching it at the cinema if and when it comes to Engerland!