Huo Yuanjia (2019)

Huo Yuanjia (2019)
Aka: Rise of Huo Yuanjia
Chinese Title: 霍元甲
Translation: Huo Yuanjia

 

Starring: Tan Xu, Cui Yongshan, Qi Erluo, Helen Gu Huizi
Director: Huang Jianye

 

Okay, another online movie, although this one was better than those awful web movies I reviewed before. It certainly has better production values, sound design, and an overall more professional sheen. It does, however, suffer in the action department, despite lead actor Tan Xu obviously being a trained wushu stylist. Jet Li and Donnie Yen still have nothing to fear in regards to being overshadowed by new talent.

Tan Xu plays Huo Yuanjia, who shows up in town after an unspecified trip and saves the local merchants from a gwailo bully, Mr. Joseph. This catches the attention of some Japanese ninja (including a cute kunoichi) and Nong Jinsun (Cui Yongshan), a doctor working for the rebel movement led by Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. Nong hires Huo as a bodyguard to accompany him on some business in Western China. Daddy Huo is initially opposed to the idea, although Huo is able to use enough of his dad's ancient wisdom to get the OK.

While on their trip. Huo and Nong run into the Peace Clan, a tribe of Western Chinese (Uighur?) people who use elaborate set-ups akin to reenacting the events of New Dragon Inn in order to dupe travellers and steal their money and wares. The clan is lead by Anar (the beautiful Helen Gu), with assistance from her sister, Moon. Yes, this is a movie about Huo Yuanjia with a character named Moon. As I said, instead of being a Miao Chinese (i.e. Hmong) lady, she's a Uighur instead. Considering the current human rights atrocities being committed in Western China, I'm not sure how I feel about that particular detail.

Anyway, Huo and Nong are captured, hog-tied, and robbed. At about that same time, Mr. Joseph, the kunoichi, her ninja entourage, and a bunch of "Western soldiers" dressed more than a century late for the American Revolution (tri-corner hats? really?) show up at the Peace Clan's village and massacre everybody. Huo and Nong rescue Anar and Moon and go into hiding, where we learn that the foreigners are after a secret treasure located in a cave on the Peace Clan's territory. Not as many fights as you might imagine ensue.

The action might have been good, had it not been cheapened by too many quick cuts and close-ups. There aren't as many fights as there should have been, and most of them are pretty sure. The movie opens with a decent fight in the marketplace, with Huo kicking around a bunch of Chinese lackeys to the horrifically-overacting-white-guy-villain. The village massacre is less interesting in practice than in theory--a bunch of ninja hacking a villain of Turkish Chinese bandits to pieces...c'mon, people! Huo's fight with Mr. Joseph and his soldiers is pretty underwhelming. His subsequent first showdown with the kunoichi isn't bad--there are some burrowing ninja tricks that call back to films like Duel to the Death. The climax has some okay choreography, although when even Nong Jinsun manages to kill ninja without any problem, it certainly brings down the fight a little.

The movie ends on a cliffhanger, with one of the villains getting away and another one, Mr. Joseph's bodyguard, taking his beef to Huo's father's dojo.