Wuxia Movie Donnie Yen

[Enrique Fats]

Irather enjoyed the film. It brought some new colors to the wuxia genre. It contains the best Donnie Yen acting performance. Jimmy Wang is genuinely scary as the villain. I think Takeshi Kaneshiro is snubbed at the Asian Film Awards and the Golden Horse Awards. As much as I enjoyed the film, the filmmaker in me, thinks the third act could have been much better polished to be something great.

The film is set in 1917 in a post-Qing Dynasty era, at Liu Village on the border of Yunnan, China. Liu Jin Xi (played by Donnie Yen) lives with his wife Yu (played by Tang Wei) and two children, works as a paper maker in Liu Village. One day, two bandits rob a general store. Liu Jin Xi, who happens to be in the store, gets into a brawl in an attempt to protect the storeowner. He kills the bandits and is branded a hero in his village.

Ok so... a paper-maker with a martial arts past accidentally defends his village from some bandits, which brings attention to him and ends up with a lot of people suffering and fighting. That's a pretty standard martial arts plot, right? Except, the attention comes from this nosy fucking investigator who RUINS THE LIVES OF EVERYONE HE MEETS. Like, no joke, if this fucking cop didn't stick his nose into everyone's business, Donnie Yen wouldn't have had a single problem.

The bizarre thing is that the investigator has absolutely no reason to investigate. There's no CRIME. Donnie Yen defended his village and killed two wanted criminals. The magistrate even says "ok, sounds good, case closed." This investigator ASSUMES that is only possible because he's a wanted criminal, something with zero support or evidence. Is it weird that Donnie yen, a paper-maker, killed these two? Yes it is. But it's such a strange leap in logic and has no set-up. It really makes the film have a shaky foundation, since so much time is spent investigating Donnie Yen's past. You as the audience is left going "whyyyyyy is he investigating? What even is there to investigate?" The film is missing a scene where the investigator says to the magistrate "something suspicious is happening, I'm requesting permission to investigate this man" or some obvious piece of evidence earlier on.

Normally I wouldn't have this much of a problem with a wuxia movie having a less-than-stellar plot, but a full hour and a half is spent on this pointless investigation with no action. There's three fight scenes in total in the film and to be honest they're not much to write home about. They're trying to do that gritty, grounded "oh look how dirty and unglamorous fighting is" combat but also having characters flying and having skin that blades bounce off of. It doesn't mix well.

The ending is............ very random. It's been a while since I last saw a villain die to a lightning strike (does that sound like a non-sequitur? because it felt VERY random when watching the film). Normally I don't like to spoil the ending to movies I watch, but jesus christ what a strange choice to make in your martial arts film.

Overall, despite all of my criticisms, I still kind of enjoyed it. There were some interesting ideas, like having the investigator go to the first fight scene and recreate the fight in his mind. That being said, I don't think I can recommend this film, which is a shame. I love wuxia and I love mystery and I was hoping this film could combine the two concepts better.

I really enjoyed this film a lot more the second time round after I watched more wuxia.

It's a Sherlock Holmes/Hercule Poirot like story, with equally outrageous feats of detecting and logicking, except the logic the detective runs on is wuxia lore. (so it might seem his guess that Yen's character is a martial arts master is wild and unsubstantiated, but in his world it's perfectly clear.)

The lightning strike I thought was again a logical solution to a problem of an unbeatable villain.

Yen can't beat him - he couldn't beat him with two arms and now he only has one. The two protagonists have to team up and the detective has to use his wuxia-medical knowledge to find a way to get past the villain's Iron Skin skill. The lightning is then both "reason and science" triumphing over brute force AND a literal punishment from Heaven for the villain's heinous crimes.

The fights I thought were quite good, they went for a more grounded style that nonetheless becomes more wuxia as the film goes on.

(I'm not trying to convince you to like it, btw, just explaining how I understood it.)

Also it's probably one of the best Jimmy Wang Yu performances I've seen. IMO he's a bad actor, a bad martial artist and a terrible leading man. Tastes were different back then.

But as an old villain? He did good.

I still haven't seen The One-Armed Swordsman. I know it's a foundational wuxia film, but some of those 60s wuxia films can be a little slow for my taste (I only got halfway through A Touch of Zen before giving up). I'm just noticing now that Jimmy Wang Yu was in like 50 movies within the span of a decade. That's nuts.

I suppose that I'm not upset about the lightning strike being used as much as I think it's wasted potential. If they had established some lore about lightning having killed someone in the past or maybe whenever the detective goes he is followed by lightning. Just something earlier in the movie so that the lightning strike at the end feels like a payoff.

And like I said, I really would have less hangups about the investigation part if there was a tiny scene where the investigator says to his boss "something isn't right here, I'm going to keep digging".

I REALLY liked the fight scene recreation where the detective figures out that Donnie Yen is secretly a master fighter. The comparison of how the story was told in our initial viewing versus how it REALLY played out was super cool.

Before beginning work on Art of Wuxia I developed a list of things that I wanted out of the game. Before every writing session and play test session, I take that list out and read it. My rule is that the list must absolutely be followed to keep the design of the game focused on its most important parts. The next few articles will cover this list and explain why I feel each of these guidelines was important for Art of Wuxia.

Design Guideline: Anything can be used as a weapon. I have seen everything used as a weapon in wuxia movies and TV shows and the books are even more over the top. Built right into the weapons table in Art of Wuxia are improvised weapons. So if you can imagine using something as a weapon, you can.

Sakra sometimes grinds to a halt while characters spit exposition at each other. At times the film looks too dark and gloomy. Whole stretches could be dropped without damaging the story. But even with its drawbacks, Sakra is a stunning achievement. If you have any interest in wuxia, it is a must-see. And for John Wick Chapter Four fans, it is icing on the cake.

Sakra is the latest wuxia movie not only starring but also directed by Donnie Yen, his first directorial project since the 1998 Hong Kong hitman thriller Ballistic Kiss. It's a curious hot mess that's both highly ambitious and not ambitious enough, but still loads of fun to watch. "Sakra" is a Buddhist term from Sanskrit that means "powerful," which is an apt title for the movie and its hero.

Sakra is the latest adaptation of Jin Yong, aka Louis Cha's epic wuxia novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils. This popular series has been adapted numerous times into movies and television. The film attempts to squeeze over 1,500 pages worth of story into a single feature in just over two hours, making it a mess. The plot moves at breakneck speed, barely pausing to register an emotional beat when a character is killed or a new twist is trotted out. It's a throwback to Hong Kong movies of the 1980s and 1990s with their breathless pace as if they don't want audiences to get bored. That means there's not a single dull moment in the whole movie. Donnie Yen's virtuous hero goes from the happy-go-lucky leader of the Beggar's Sect, rescuing people in trouble and making friends, to getting framed for the murder of his adopted parents, his former master at the temple and going on the run with an ailing spy he promises to heal that he falls in love with to uncovering the origins of his birth and a plot to overthrow the Song Dynasty. There's a reason the television series versions of this book could comfortably last over forty episodes without breaking a sweat. There are easily five seasons' worth of story in the book. The emotional beats land just long enough for you to notice they're there before rushing off to the next plot beat, which is actually normal for Hong Kong action movies but also makes this movie a hot mess, but a fun hot mess.

Donnie Yen said he wanted to direct because he felt there were new ways to tell a story and new ways to portray wuxia action. The latter is the reason you want to see this movie. There's no denying that Yen has an impeccable eye for where to place the camera, how long to hold a shot during a fight scene, and when to cut from a wide shot showing fighters in action to close-ups to highlight the impact of their blows and kicks. He's nothing if not a stylish director, and working with a team co-headed by Kenji Tanigachi, one of the best sword and martial arts directors in the world now, they create ambitious setpieces and images that you haven't seen before with a combination of real fights, wire work, and CGI. Don't worry; that horse he kicked across the screen is CGI (we hope). Of course, Donnie Yen looks cool in this movie. It's his movie; he gets to look cool in it as much as he wants. What's the point of directing if he doesn't do that?

Sakra is flawed for trying to cram way too much story into a single movie, but it's a lot of fun to watch. It's a throwback to classic Hong Kong wuxia movies with slicker and faster action, and that's really what you're here for.

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