The biggest drawback of Wu Xia is its title. Even if you do happen to know that the Chinese phrase roughly means 'martial arts fiction’, the title comes across as a little pretentious. How you feel about seeing a jokey film called 'Comedy’ or a fright movie called 'Horror’? It’s like promising the last word in the genre. Wu Xia isn’t the ultimate, but it is very, very good and has qualities that will seduce moviegoers who don’t care what the title means.
With a splash of Sergio Leone westerns and approaching the emotional power of There Will be Blood, Peter Ho-sun Chan’s film is fresh from its premiere at this year’s Cannes Film festival where it was one of the most anticipated out of competition films. And did I mention it stars one of Asia’s great martial arts superstars? Donnie Yen (Ip Man, The Lost Bladesman), who choreographed the action, actually acts in this film. Really acts. It’s like when you saw Sylvester Stallone in Copland or when your parents (OK, OK"¦ my parents, your grandparents) saw Tony Curtis in Sweet Smell of Success or what John Ford said about John Wayne when he starred in Howard Hawks’ Red River: 'I didn’t know the big sonofabitch could act!" Unlike most Donnie Yen films, where I’m just waiting for the fights to start, this time he made me care what happens to his character.
The story is set in 1917 in a country town in the Yunnan province. A couple of desperadoes wander in and terrorise a storekeeper for money. A humble, local man, Liu (Yen), intervenes and to the surprise of all in the village he not only fights the thugs, he kills them. He says, he 'got lucky". Because Liu is an honest papermaker, who has brought prosperity to their lives, the villagers – including his wife and young boys – believe him.
It’s a great set-up, and when the police come to investigate, Xu (Takeshi Kaneshiro), a foppish Chinese cop with a talent for deduction as well as herbalism and acupuncture, realises maybe this mild-mannered guy isn’t exactly who he pretends to be. We see the brawl again, but this time it’s as it really happened – not as the villagers thought they saw it. And it works both times!
The script by Aubrey Lam is a taut cat-and-mouse game that teases out the details on a man who – for reasons it would be churlish to reveal here – would prefer to be left alone. Yep he’s got a secret and it involves a group of murderers known as the 72 Demons who are lead by Jimmy Wang Yu, aka The One Armed Boxer (1976) and The Man from Hong Kong (1975). Unfortunately, the script hits a bump just before the big showdown (it seems to coincide with a sudden drop in the up-until-then exquisite cinematography by Jake Pollock and Lai Yiu-fai), but the ride there is extraordinary. It’s this last 20 minutes that stops Wu Xia being the genre benchmark it could have been, but it’ll be hard to forget nevertheless.
Director Peter Ho-sun Chan shows once again what a splendid filmmaker he is. His work a visual delight, but it is also frequently audacious, providing images that lift the film from a run of the mill 'chop socky’ to something with a real heart. Other less talented directors might have rushed over the family scenes, but Chan makes sure that he hits the key emotional targets, so this becomes a film you remember not just for a killer leap or some flashy visuals (though the op art opening credits are a knockout).
Equally impressive is Chan’s use of music. Idyllic flutes and strings for the pastoral opening are charming, but the use of thrash metal for one of the fight scenes is truly inspired.
