A Man Called
Hero (1999)
Original Title: 中華英雄
Translation: Chinese Hero
Starring: Ekin Cheng, Nicolas Tse,
Kristy Yang, Shu Qi, Jerry Lamb, Yuen Biao, Francis Ng, Ken Low, Dion Lam,
Grace Yip, Sam Lee, Mark Cheng, Anthony Wong, Cheng Pei Pei
Director: Andrew Lau
Action Director: Dion Lam
A Man Called Hero is the stylistic sequel to the 1998 hit The Storm
Riders and is the second film in Andrew Lau’s “CGI Tetralogy,” a series of
four films[1]
that really pushed the envelope on the use of digital effects in Hong Kong
cinema. Like its predecessor, the source material for A Man Called Hero
is a comic book by Hong Kong native Ma Wing-Shing, although the journey from
paper to celluloid ended up a lot bumpier for this particular film. And, as is
the case for lots of movies that exist mainly to show off the talents of the
special effects technicians, the flaws in the more artistic aspects of the
production bring the effects to the foreground, and ultimately date them,
leaving the film as little more than a time capsule today.
The story is ultimately pretty simple, but convoluted by the fact that it’s
told primarily in flashback. We open in the early days of the 20th
century, in which our protagonist, Hero Hua (Ekin Cheng, of the Young and
Dangerous films and The Storm Riders), is going to marry his
girlfriend Jade and is poised to become a great martial artist under the
tutelage of his sifu, Master Pride (The Untold Story’s Anthony
Wong, in an extended cameo). All that changes when Hero’s parents are murdered
by opium dealers in retaliation for his father’s inflammatory articles about
them. Hero responds by slicing off the head of the main opium dealer, which
necessitates his fleeing China for the United States, but not before knocking
up Jade.
Sixteen years later, Hero’s son, Sword (Nicolas Tse, of Dragon Tiger Gate
and 2002), arrives in the USA with Hero’s best friend Sheng (Jerry
Lamb), in search of dad. At New York’s Chinatown, Sword befriends the de facto
head of the neighborhood and hotel owner, played by Yuen Biao (of Knockabout
and Kick Boxer). Yuen introduces Sword to a monk named Luohan (Drunken
Master II’s Ken Low, in a non-fighting role). In our first flashback,
Luohan reveals that he had met Hero during the voyage to the States, where the
two of them ended up working at a mine under slave-like conditions. Hero
quickly made enemies with the Chinese foreman, Bigot (Tsui Kam-Kong, of Prison
on Fire 2 and The Eternal Evil of Asia), and even killed one of the
mine employees for mistreating the Chinese. Hero is saved from execution by the
intervention of both Luohan and Shadow (Dion Lam, the film’s fight
choreographer), Hero’s elder kung fu brother.
At this point, the narrative switches over to a flashback from Sheng, who tells
of his arrival in the United States together with Jade, who is now several
months pregnant. They eventually find Hero Hua, who is working as a rickshaw
puller in Chinatown. Husband and wife are reunited, and they set up shop in Chinatown
while awaiting the arrival of their new child(ren).
That’s where the narrative becomes a flashback told from Shadow’s point of
view. Things get hairy when a quintet of Japanese ninja working for Master
Invincible (Francis Ng, of The Mission and The White Dragon) show
up looking to pick a fight. The ninja are led by Jin (Mark Cheng, of Tai Chi II and War), and among their number is Mu (Shu Qi, another Storm
Riders alumni). Hero Hua and Shadow are able to defeat the ninja in combat.
Hero Hua saves Mu’s life and nurses her back to health, causing her to fall in
love with him, much to Jin’s dismay. Jin gets back at Hero Hua—how dare he
treat Mu like a human being and not a sex object!—by teaming up with Bigot and
setting the hotel where Jade is giving birth on fire.
Jade dies of asphyxiation during their escape, and Hero Hua’s daughter ends up
in Bigot’s clutches. Sword, the twin brother, is given to Sheng, who takes him
back to China to raise him. Meanwhile, Hero Hua and Shadow go to Japan to
witness a duel between Master Pride and Master Invincible. Pride wins but is
mortally wounded. Before expiring, he passes on a special technique to Hero
Hua, who stays in Japan training for the next 16 years. Cut back to the present
day…
There is a lot going on in this film, and one wonders if it wasn’t unwise to
include so many subplots from the comic book in a single film. There are a lot
of threads left unresolved at the end, the most glaring one being the lack of
resolution to the subplot involving Hero Hua’s lost daughter. Jin, the evil
ninja, gets away too, setting up a sequel that would revolve around the love
triangle between him, Mu and Hero Hua, but that never came to light. There’s
sort of a hinted romance between Sword and Shadow’s daughter, Kate (Grace Yip),
but nothing comes of that, either. In fact, I can’t help but wonder why Kate is
in the movie in the first place, since she does nothing that is important to
the story.
Much like origin-story films in the current Marvel Cinematic Universe, the villain
is pushed into the background until the third act, when the hero needs someone
to fight for the climax. There are two sets of bad guys, those being Master
Invincible and his ninja, and the owners of the mine, who team up with the KKK
for the climatic showdown in Chinatown[2].
The movie would’ve done better to focus mainly on the mine owners, which
might’ve turned the film into a profound statement about the plight of Chinese
immigrants during the 19th and early 20th centuries. But
since the film is trying to say a lot of things at the same time, it ends up
saying absolutely nothing at all. Moreover, by the time we reach the end, Hero
Hua has become so powerful that you can’t possibly imagine them being a match
for him.
Speaking of powers, A Man Called Hero has some glaring holes in its
internal logic on account of its characters being super-powered kung fu
masters. In The Storm Riders, there’s a consistency in that those in
power are the ones whose martial arts superpowers are the strongest, or at
least most well-honed. A Man Called Hero features characters that can
transform into water or fireballs, or cause people to explode with qi blasts,
etc., but simultaneously suffer at the hands of otherwise ordinary people and
mundane dangers. If Hero Hua can jump roof to roof at dizzying speeds a lá
Spider-Man, why would it take him so long to flee the hotel when it’s on fire?
Or why did he suffer at all at the hands of the mine employees when he could
have killed every single one of them in three seconds flat? Why are Master
Invincible and his ninja cohorts wasting their time on trying to kill Hero Hua,
when they have enough superpowers to conquer their homeland?
I’m sure that audiences in 1999 who flocked to this were impressed with the CGI battles on display. Today, those scenes are not only unimpressive, but it’s hard to imagine what audiences enjoyed back then. There are three main digital battles, the first being the duel with the ninja in an alleyway. One ninja can transform into drops of water and another into fireballs. Yawn. Shu Qi’s Mu can fire a bunch of CGI chains at her opponent like Doctor Octopus, but still…yawn. The big duel between Anthony Wong and Francis Ng consists of them standing in a big puddle and sending blasts of CGI water at each other until Wong declares himself the victor…okay, whatever. The climax on the Statue of Liberty is the most sustained fight scene and probably the best in the film. There’s some decent swordplay between Ekin Cheng and Francis Ng, and the film predates the X-Men duel between Wolverine and Sabretooth by a year and features even more carnage. I’m not sure if this is the prime contribution of Dion Lam to action cinema, but it’s not bad.
Those looking for actual martial arts will have to content themselves with a few brief dustups from Yuen Biao. His character is introduced when some employees from the mine show up in Chinatown looking for Luohan, whom Yuen has hidden. Yuen then beats them up and sends them packing. Later on, Yuen tussles with the head of the mine, who has brought the KKK to Chinatown. The two exchange some kicks—where did the white guy learn to kick like that—before Yuen does a wire-fu flip kick and knocks him out. Being generous, these fights represent about two minutes of a two-hour running time. It’s always a nice sight to see Yuen Biao fighting, although his kicks are surprisingly low in this film—was he recovering from an injury at this point?
A Man Called Hero continued the trend that The Storm Riders, and, to a lesser extent, Dr. Wei and the Scripture with No Words, started in brining “state-of-the-art” digital effects to traditional Chinese fight choreography. However, as we’re talking about 90s CGI here, the effects haven’t aged well at all, and the most memorable action sequences involve a 41-year-old Yuen Biao fighting below his physical potential. Later movies to do the same thing, like Stephen Chow’s Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, would benefit from stronger direction, a more comedic setting, and a general improvement in the artistic aspects of the film, which end up strengthening the action sequences themselves. That’s why people still remember those two films fondly today, while this movie is little more than a footnote in the history of Hong Kong cinema.
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