Dragon aka Swordsman aka Wu Xia

[doug maverick]

its playing at the village cinema here in new york.

[doug maverick]

write up in the village voice

Dragon (Wu xia)
Comments (0) By Nick Pinkerton Wednesday, Nov 28 2012
Details
Dragon (Wu xia)
Directed by Peter Chan
The Weinstein Company
Opens November 30

The roaring popular success of Peter Chan's Wu xia in China—renamed Dragon for export—is no mystery: It's an adept genre exercise with rare primal depths. Liu Jin-xi (Donnie Yen), a paper-mill worker and by all accounts a meek family man, blunderingly dispatches two bandits who attempt a robbery in his sleepy Yunnan Province village, and so becomes the center of an investigation by the paranoiac detective charged with covering the inquest, Xu Bai-ju (Takeshi Kaneshiro). Xu, using circa-1917 forensics that draw heavily on his knowledge of acupuncture, begins to suspect that Liu is someone other than who he says, his "accidental" valor in fact being the work of a trained killer. The script, by Aubrey Lam, bears a marked resemblance to David Cronenberg's A History of Violence and a score of old westerns beside—the retired bad man rustled out of retirement by figures from the past—while the fleet spirit of the film evokes happier days of Hong Kong cinema. Although Yen does not catch every facet of his character's ambivalence, he choreographs himself flexibly shot, lucid fight duets with Kara Hui and Jimmy Wang, whose considerable bulk proves impervious to blade strikes—Wang's 1967 The One-Armed Swordsman is, for reasons which become apparent after a rather gruesome plot twist, another partial inspiration. Dragon itself has been dismembered, shorn of nearly 20 minutes for its U.S. release, but what remains is more than sufficient to do the job. Nick Pinkerton

[GeneChing]

'more hand-to-hand combat than that Kate Capshaw vehicle' - luv that line.

From A Rom-Com Director, A Subtle Kung Fu Flick
by Mark Jenkins

Radius/The Weinstein Co.
Donnie Yen stars as Liu Jinxi, a quiet mountain-village family man who turns out to have a complicated past, in Dragon.

Dragon
Director: Peter Ho-Sun Chan
Genre: Action
Running time: 98 minutes
Rated R for violence
In Mandarin with subtitles
With: Wei Tang, Wu Jiang and Takeshi Kaneshiro

November 29, 2012

The latest movie from versatile Hong Kong director Peter Ho-Sun Chan has been given not one but two generic titles: In China, it's Wu Xia, which means "martial hero" and is the overall term for kung fu films; in this country, it's called Dragon, which has similar connotations.

The joke is that Chan doesn't really make action flicks, even when working within the genre. He's so known for romantic comedies that he got to direct one for producer Steven Spielberg, a 1999 misfire called The Love Letter. Dragon has a lot more hand-to-hand combat than that Kate Capshaw vehicle — and probably had more before it was cut by 18 minutes for U.S. release. But it's still primarily a mood piece, not a brawler.

The movie opens gently, with the morning routine at the humble mountain-village home of paper-worker Liu Jinxi (Donnie Yen, who also choreographed the fight scenes). Jinxi is married to pretty Ayu (Lust, Caution's Tang Wei) and is the doting father of two boys, the older from Ayu's first marriage.

Jinxi happens to be in the local general store when two thugs demand the elderly shopkeeper's cash. The merchant and his gray-haired wife fight the robbers, but Jinxi holds back. We already know he's a vegetarian; perhaps he's a pacifist, too. Or simply a coward.

Nope. Jinxi eventually joins the melee and reveals why he hesitated. His handling of the two hoodlums shows he's an experienced fighter.

In the first version we see, the showdown is a nasty, believably sloppy scuffle. But then detective Xu Baijiu (Taiwanese-Japanese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro) arrives and insists that Jinxi recount what happened. This cues a flashback in which Jinxi fights the bandits again, this time with more command. As the three men struggle, Baijiu walks through the flashback, observing precisely.

The detective is an existential type, possessed of extraordinary detachment. He's also versed in Chinese medicine and the latest — it's 1917 — in Western physiological knowledge. He can't throw a punch, but he can bring down an enemy with a perfectly placed acupuncture needle.


Radius/The Weinstein Co.
Ayu (Tang Wei) starts her life over with Liu Jinxi after being abandoned by her first husband.

Baijiu correctly surmises that Jinxi is a former criminal, whose modest new life is in fact a refuge from justice. Jinxi offers a confession, but says he's served his time. Baijiu doesn't buy the admission, and so makes plans to arrest the man. But it turns out that Jinxi is a defector from a fierce criminal gang, the 72 Demons, whose martial-arts skills are uncanny. When the Demons arrive to bring the renegade back to the clan, Baijiu and Jinxi have little choice but to become allies.

Dragon is partly an homage to One Armed Swordsman, a 1967 kung fu classic whose star, Jimmy Wang Yu, plays the new movie's arch-villain. But there's much Western influence: Jinxi's plight recalls David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, and Baijiu's cerebral and flashy style of detection — complete with animated glimpses of victims' innards — suggests Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes series. Dragon is also one of several recent Chinese crime movies that borrow from CSI-style TV dramas.

The story becomes less distinctive as the two protagonists' wary, believably human relationship is overshadowed by the grandiose supernatural threat of the 72 Demons. But the widescreen cinematography and mountain rain-forest locations retain their interest, as does the deftly incongruous score, which ranges from samba to hard rock. And the best of the action set pieces are dynamic enough to demonstrate that Chan can make a wu xia movie if he really feels like it.

[JamesC]

Just watched this. I was really disappointed after all the hype. Especially with the comparisons to history of violence.

I found it mediocre at best. To me, the best part of the whole movie was when the detective was figuring out the fight. The way his dad died made no sense. At all.

[GeneChing]

This never did play around here. I searched via zip code and nothing local turned up. BOM only listed 14 theaters.

December 10, 2012, 3:00 PM
Actor Donnie Yen on His Kung Fu Film, ‘Dragon’
By Dean Napolitano

Martial-arts actor Donnie Yen has been on a tear over the past few years, becoming one of the world’s busiest action stars and rivaling Jackie Chan and Jet Li for dominance in Asia.

Although his movie career spans 30 years, it wasn’t until 2008 that Yen catapulted to the top ranks of leading man with “Ip Man.” The film, based on the life of the 20th-century Chinese martial-arts master of the same name and whose students included a young Bruce Lee, was a runaway success and spawned a hit sequel two years later. Since then, the 49-year-old actor has starred in a string of high-profile movies, including 2010’s “Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen,” taking on the same role that Bruce Lee played in “Fist of Fury.”

Yen’s latest film is “Dragon,” a cat-and-mouse martial-arts thriller in which he plays a man — Liu Jin-xi — living a seemingly simple life with his wife and two children in a remote village in early 20th-century China. After Liu — using masterful kung-fu moves –kills a pair of bandits trying to rob a local shopkeeper, a police detective investigating the case uncovers Liu’s true identity: a former member of a brutal criminal clan who’s now in hiding. (In Asia, the film was released under the title “Wu Xia,” which translates roughly as “martial-arts chivalry.”)

Director Peter Chan’s clever art-house spin on a popular genre pays homage to the stylish Hong Kong kung-fu movies of the 1960s and ’70s. “Dragon,” which opened in New York and Los Angeles on Nov. 30 and is now available on iTunes, also stars Takeshi Kaneshiro (“Red Cliff”), Tang Wei (“Lust, Caution”) and legendary Shaw Brothers Studio martial-arts stars Jimmy Wang Yu and Kara Hui.

Speakeasy caught up with Yen, who talked about his role in “Dragon,” pulling dual duty as star and action choreographer, and working in Hollywood.

Edited excerpts:

The character you play in “Dragon” is more complex than your other recent roles: He’s a man seeking redemption from his murderous life but ultimately is forced to confront his past. Why did you take on the role?

I think every actor wants to try out different things. When audiences look at an action actor like myself, sometimes we are very easily stereotyped or characterized as one type. They forget that we are actors, too. We just make a lot of action movies. I was very fortunate — although I didn’t come from a classic background, I do have 30 years of experience making films. It’s just that marketing-wise, I’m always chosen to play these straight-up heroic roles.

How did you prepare for the film?

Like any other actor, I draw on life experience. I have always been a great fan of Peter Chan and many other great directors who specialize in anything outside of action. I watch any type of film, I do my homework, and I have a high appreciation of the acting art. Over the past few years, the majority of my films were big box-office successes in Asia … and then I was given an opportunity to take on different roles.

You also were the action choreographer for “Dragon.” How did you balance the responsibilities?

I’ve been juggling dual positions for a long time. I guess I’m used to that type of work load. As an actor — to play the character truthfully — you have to be as subjective as possible. But as a director, you have to be as objective as possible and try to look at it from every angle. I don’t get a lot of sleep at night because my brain is constantly thinking of every detail. I plan everything in my head for the next day and how to shoot it. But I’m also thinking: Am I taking this role in the right direction?

How did you approach the action scenes?

“Dragon” [which is set in a Chinese village at the end of the Qing Dynasty] created certain rules for me. The character wouldn’t look right if I had him doing mixed martial-arts or Brazilian jiu-jitsu or Thai boxing. [I thought] it would be a good mix if I put in these ’70s Shaw Brothers kung-fu movies. So I thought: Let me create that kind of action for this character. That’s how I create action scenes, I start off with the character and then it expands. I don’t have a storyboard. Everything is created in my head before I walk on the set, so when I’m on the set I know exactly what to shoot and how to shoot it.

How much preparation do you get for an action scene?

Preparation is not a luxury for Asian martial-arts films. I worked in Hollywood films [“Shanghai Knights” and “Blade II”] — there’s a lot of preparation. I support that, and I wish we could do a little bit more of that in Asia. But that is not our industry’s practice. There’s a lot of focus of putting everything together and saying “Let’s shoot it.”

How is working in Hollywood compared with Hong Kong and China?

We are a lot more sophisticated nowadays, but compared to Hollywood, where we have two months of preparation and rehearsal — we don’t have rehearsals [in Asia]. It’s purely my experience and the experience of my crew, my stunt team. I try to give my guys as much time as possible [when it comes to] safety and protection. But as far as creativity goes, we create while we are there.

You’ll be 50 next year. How much longer do you plan to perform in martial-arts movies?

Obviously, I’ve had a lot injuries — not from just accidents but from years of wear and tear on my body. I still feel very good about my performances — I’m still fast and strong. Maybe I have a good lifestyle balance. I don’t have a night life, I don’t really drink, I don’t smoke, no drugs — a very clean family life.

Mentally, I feel more inspired and motivated than ever. I don’t know what it is. Sometimes it’s not just pure physical energy. I think it’s also the mind. But, of course, I’ve got to give myself a deadline. I don’t plan to do this all my life. I want to do other things.

Such as?

I’ll probably produce my own films, and I’ll want to scout some new talent. But for now I’ve got to finish up seven more movies … then I’ll think about what I’m going to do — whether I’m going to be in front of the camera or go back behind the camera and be a producer before I retire.

[ghostexorcist]

I like crime shows and martial arts films, so this movie is a perfect fit for me. The only problem I saw was that it couldn't decide whether it was a crime thriller with some fight scenes, or a martial arts film with a detective as a character. I think it would have been more interesting if they had waited closer to the end to reveal Yen's true identity and martial arts ability. I also thought the side story involving the detective being poisoned was unnecessary. In addition, I was a little disappointed in the way Jimmy Wang Yu's character was ultimately killed off. It could have been much better, but it's still an entertaining film.

[GeneChing]

Shelf Space Weekly: Cleopatra Unchained Edition
Fred Topel reveals the latest high-def news: Django Unchained, Texas Chainsaw 3D, The Last Stand, The Howling, Cleopatra’s debut on Blu-ray and more!
March 2nd, 2013 Fred Topel

In Shelf Space Weekly we look ahead at the upcoming home video releases to anticipate what might be worth space on our crowded shelves. This week’s column is extra long, and full of catalog titles. I’m always a little more excited when old movies are announced on Blu-ray, because I’m already expecting the new releases. Classics are like a Christmas present in March.

...



Dragon – April 16, 2013

Donnie Yen’s latest martial arts epic is coming to American homes this spring. I saw this at ActionFest last year under the title Wu Xia and even got to interview Yen by phone. Part A History of Violence, part Sherlock Holmes but with more ass-kicking than both of them combined, the Blu-ray or DVD also include a making of featurette and music video. The only bonus feature you need though is Donnie Yen kicking ass in HD.

Sorry to see that this never got a better theatrical distribution.

[Brule]

I haven't read through the thread so this may have already been answered but is this US release going to be cut back as most of these imports are?

[sanjuro_ronin]

Saw this Blu-ray the other day and wondered is anyone had seen it:

http://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Blu-ray...gon+dinnie+yen

[Brule]

Haven't seen it but there's a thread on it here.

http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/...ighlight=wuxia

[sanjuro_ronin]

Thanks dude.

[PalmStriker]

Had seen this movie in the Netflix library and had passed on it more than once based on content description, ha! Not realizing. May be a while for us to view Monkey King in the States, watched "Dragon" with Donnie Yen on Netflix (library) for the first time last night, my favorite to date, I take back what I said about his acting as "stoic", and now to show expression wearing a facial prop, I'll be non-judgmental. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIiGQ8soaZs

Last edited by PalmStriker; Yesterday at 12:38 PM.