User Reviews

Let's see....

I'm rich, bored, arrogant, maybe "a little crazy", and think I'm a "warrior". What to do? --I got it! I'll hold underground fights to the death! And to make it really interesting, I'll seduce a mild-mannered Tai Chi guy with money and trick him into fights until he's no longer a nice guy; until he turns into a vicious killer. "Why", you ask? I refer you back to the line after "arrogant".

The Tai Chi guy delivers packages for a living and fights in championship matches when they are held. He fights using "Tai Chi" which I personally (and perhaps you) always thought old Asian people did to get some exercise. You've seen it, right? The slow-motion movements? Well the Tai Chi guy (a young guy) has decided to speed things up a bit to great success in his championship matches. His master, an old guy (it figures), is not happy about it. He wants the Tai Chi guy to "meditate" and "direct his chi someplace"....I dunno. Well, like I said, the Tai Chi guy is young and doesn't have time for that sh!t. He enjoys speed and power.

I suppose it's possible to pass the time with this without feeling you wasted it. Myself: I was not too impressed. I thought the choreography was bad as it did not cleanly and creatively show fighting action and techniques as I would have liked. I understand that real-life fighting can be messy, arms and legs flying all over the place doing God-knows-what. But these were supposed to be "experts" and importantly "artists". So I would have expected a bit more finesse instead of the loud yelling and the pedestrian use of arms and legs. Keanu Reeves fought much better in his Matrix movies than in this (better choreography and a younger, more inspired Reeves, I guess). Even the lesser fighters who the Tai Chi guy was able to beat fought better than him and yet when he fought the Tai Chi guy in the grand final he gave the Tai Chi guy trouble which was not at all credible to me. Love, Boloxxxi.

Well after waiting ages to see what Mr Reeves has come up with i was pleasantly surprised! The acting was good the story a little different and the fight scenes were great. Using Tai Chi in the form of a martial art and together with some great philosophy this turned out to be a solid performance all round. Both Keanu and Chen Lin-Hu gave it their all and it was great to see Keanu using his old skills again not quite the Matrix but he still kicks ass. Some of the fight scenes were a little short but amazing styles were used to try to break Tai Chi. Fight clubs have been done to death so i was hoping to see something original in that respect but alas they stuck to the same formula. All in all a good film with amazing fighting and nice to see Keanu and Chen back together!! come on Chen we need to see more of you!!

Man of Tai Chi tells the age-old martial arts tale of a student devoting himself to an art, loses his way and has to find himself again. It's simple, well-paced, and communicates martial arts philosophy.

Tiger Chen holds his own as the breakout martial arts lead. His Tai Chi movements are beautiful. The core of his charisma is that he is a real human being with vulnerabilities. He is not preening for the camera in a showy or narcissistic manner and plays his scenes earnestly. Does Tiger Chen fit the description of a leading man? I don't know, but it'd be nice to see more of him in future roles.

As for the supporting cast, Karen Mok fares better when she's required to be loud and peppy. Silent performances aren't her forte. Qing Ye makes an adorable love interest. Iko Uwais from The Raid: Redemption makes a nice cameo as a fighter. Yu Hai is charismatic as Tiger's Tai Chi master, the dramatic scenes between Tiger and him were engaging and form the heart of the story.

The comedy gags in Cantonese spoken by the Hong Kong policemen actually do work. I laughed, though I wonder how the gags will play as subtitles for English-speaking audiences. It's like Reeves found a way to seep into the culture. That's a thing that really impressed me with Man of Tai Chi, for a film set in China that's directed by a foreign director, it remains true to the culture. There's no Orientalist gaze on Chinese culture, or a laundry-list showcase of the tourist hot spots. Mainlanders speak Mandarin, and people in Hong Kong speak Cantonese. There's no misrepresentation here. I love how the film shows that many Chinese people are bilingual these days.

Tai Chi is a difficult martial art to capture on film. The idea of countering a hard energy with a soft energy is something you can only feel when you're practicing the martial art, it's a hard thing to see and be a part of as a bystander. It's difficult to locate where the skill of the fight is. Previous cinematic attempts at Tai Chi, such as Jet Li's The Tai Chi Master or Yuen Wah in Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle, have solved this problem by exaggerating Tai Chi to a cartoonish degree. Yuen Woo Ping executes this wonderfully and finds the right assortment of other martial art styles to fully test the limits of Tai Chi. Tiger Chen fights his opponents in the air, rolls on the ground, uses objects and the surrounding environment. There are no quick cuts hiding pulled punches and I love that. The fights are covered in wide shots with real martial artists and anybody can follow whats going on.

Contrary to popular belief, I sincerely do not think Keanu Reeves is as bad of an actor as everybody says. I'm a fan. That said, unfortunately Reeves is the own worst part of his own movie. He is wooden here, but I take no issue with his performance in Man of Tai Chi. However, casting himself as the main villain meant that he is the final boss of his own kung fu movie. After 90 minutes of seeing Tiger Chen beating numerous opponents of varying styles, there simply is no way I can believe that Keanu can beat Tiger Chen. The film doesn't provide any assistance as there's no establishing scene showcasing Keanu's character's fighting abilities early in the story. For example, the final henchman that fights Tony Jaa in Ong Bak is obviously physically inferior to Jaa in real life, but the story makes him the more superior fighter by stating it beforehand. I would have been fine with even that. The end climatic fight is stiff and awkward; it's obvious that Keanu didn't have time to train with his directing duties.

That said, there is still a lot to like. And perhaps I like Man of Tai Chi more for intellectual reasons rather than its final result. But I have seen too many recent Chinese martial arts films that don't star martial artists in them. That's just boring to me. I would rather see a film that's trying something ambitious and fall short than make something that's vacuous and faceless. Even with a disappointing climatic fight, the heartbeat of Man of Tai Chi is what won me over. I don't' know if Keanu Reeves want to keep directing in the future, but this is a good debut film.

For more reviews, please go to my film blog at http://hkauteur.wordpress.com

This little movie skipped under the radar of most people when it released in November 2013. I don't think it ever showed in the theaters in my city, but it popped onto my Netflix radar this afternoon. To set the stage for this movie, it's Keanu Reeves' first stint as director; he also plays bad guy Donaka. It's set in Hong Kong and features some big names in the Hong Kong film industry. Although, these actors are relatively unknown in the US.

I loved the use of Tai Chi in this movie, when it was used by Yang. I liked Tiger's style, but Yang's was so calm and fluid, almost like watching water fall from a cup. The movie also managed to showcase some of the other styles in the fighting world without taking away from the story of Tiger. Granted, Tai Chi is usually used as an exercise method, not a fighting style. The cinematography for the fight scenes was excellent (with a few exceptions) and gave a good impression of the many moves each fighter displayed.

The story itself is pretty common; it's the Dorian Grey archetype. A young student wants to rebel against the strict teachings of his master, and a dark shadowy figure leads him down a path of more and more dangerous pastimes. The story also takes the traditional American kung- fu movie and tips it by making the American the bad guy and the foreigner the hero. It actually felt more like a foreign film than I expected from Keanu Reeves.

Acting wise, I liked everyone except the English speakers. I felt Keanu was a bit stiff, but pulling the job of both actor and director can sometimes do that. Also, the female announcer annoyed me whenever she spoke because it felt like she was reading off a cue card. Tiger Chen (played by Tiger Chen) was very expressive and I liked how he often conveyed more with his eyes than anything else.