Wong Fei-Hung is a name that's probably universally recognized in China. He's an iconic Chinese folk hero and there have been well over 100 films made about the martial arts master, doctor and revolutionary. Some of the more notable films about Wong Fei-Hung are those that make up the Once Upon a Time in China Trilogy by the director Tsui Hark. The first three films in the franchise star Jet Li, and are partly responsible for propelling him into international stardom.
The first film begins with General Lau Wing-Fuk of the Black Flag army telling Wong Fei-Hung (Jet Li) to assemble a local militia in order to help protect the town of Fat-San due to its increasing amount of foreigners. This turns out to be easier said than done however, as soon Master Wong is dealing with threats from the Shaho Gang members, the corrupt slave-trading Americans and a brutal martial arts master named “Iron Vest” Yim (Shen Shi-kwan).
There are many characters and the first twenty minutes or so suffers a little for it. It’s hard to keep track of the various students of Master Wong as well as the plethora of villains. It’s not until a massive brawl in a foreign owned restaurant (which leads to the arrests of the majority of his students, save for the important few) that it becomes much simpler follow. There are several subplots, one involving the potential romance between Master Wong and Aunt 13 (Rosamund Kwan). Theirs is a strained relationship because her father was a sworn brother to Wong’s grandfather, which makes them related in title, though not by blood. A young struggling martial artist named Leung Foon (Yuen Biao) plays a continuous supporting role despite his limited involvement with the central cast in the first half of the film. There are also a menagerie of villainous characters to choose from, each more vile than the last. There’s the rival fighter Yim, who's led down a darker path due to his own struggle to make a living, the American slave traders who use guns on martial artists (a major sign of a villain in a martial arts film) and team with the Shaho Gang, and then there’s the Shaho Gang themselves: a band of violent murderers and rapists that seem to live only for making Master Wong’s life harder. The film follows a fairly open plot structure in that the onscreen events are presented as part of one large ongoing plot. Instead, everything comes at Master Wong and his students in the form of a series of challenges that slowly combine as the story progresses.
It works out better than I make it sound, and there are two main reasons for this: the characters and the direction. Every single character in the film is given their own modicum of development, no matter how seemingly unimportant they are when introduced. There are characters that at first seem like their only contribution is to be the slapstick comic relief (which often misses the mark), but as the problems start piling up and the dangers become more present, even these characters begin to show real emotions. It’s certainly more than you’d expect when characters like Wing “Porky” (Kent Cheng), a fat and quick-to-anger student of Master Wong, and an American-educated Chinese name “Bucktooth” So (Jacky Cheung) show a surprising amount of range. Jet Li gives a stand out performance as Wong Fei-Hung and his onscreen likability goes at least as far as his breathtaking display of martial arts prowess. Master Wong is a devote nationalist and is often angered by the negatives that seem to come with the foreign colonialism. He values the customs and traditions of his culture and struggles to cope with his ever changing environment. There's a very powerful message of nationalism present in the film, but overall it takes a backseat to the action.
Tsui Hark is an influential filmmaker known especially for his big budget films of the late 80s and 90s, and this franchise in particular is a staple of his work. The film is very stylized both in terms of camera work and action sequences and there are dozens of fight scenes, most of which are memorable. One highlight is a scene in which Master Wong and Yim duel in a room full of ladders, leaping off of them as they fall and kicking the hell out of each other in ways that defy the laws of physics. There's some very careful editing at work here to make some of the most impossible fight scenes flow and feel natural. If anything can be said of Tsui Hark, it’s that he's a man who knows how to film a fight scene.
Once Upon a Time in China is a vastly entertaining martial arts epic. Although it carries strong themes of nationalism and the negatives of western imperialism, that by no means limits its audience. The opening credits showcase dozens of students displaying their martial arts techniques with Jet Li leading them on. That, more than anything, is what this film is really about. What more could you ask for?
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