Wu Xia

WU XIA (2011) - It is an atypical film in itself, much more so coming from Donnie Yen. Xu Baijiu's accent was very distracting and I could barely make out what he was saying, and for the most part when he speaks I found myself reading both the English and Mandarin subtitles. I must say I was rather surprised to Donnie Yen really acting here, complete with pained facial expressions and tears and all. Nice; he can actually act. Tang Wei's character also differs from your usual pretty-woman-in-the-film-just-for-the-sake-of-having-a-woman-the-film role, she actually has feelings and emotions to account for and has guts to react in the face of adversary. Action wise, I have not seen those fists that Donnie Yen uses in this film, and my oh my, do they not look amazing. Just when I thought he has exhausted most of his moves, he gives us new ones. For a 2-hour film, the amount of action does not seem to be enough, however what it lacks in quantity it compensates in quality. Wang Yu's patriarch character was extremely scary. He has an awful lot of screen presence and the vocal chords to match. I have never been intimidated by characters in movies, but he was just disturbing and discomforting to watch, and when he yells it totally shakes you to your bones. The scenery of the location was breathtaking, especially the river with the aquatic grass in which Donnie first kills the hulking criminal. It is so clear it makes you want to dive right in and frolic, but hey. A man just died in there. 7.5/10.