Customer Reviews

Fist of Legend [VHS]

5 star:		(212)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Well, this review is mainly written for those who are already familiar with the movie and have yet to see this DVD version of it. First the good news. The picture quality is better than I have ever seen it on video, which is to be expected from the transfer. The colors are vivid and the lines are sharp, and overall the picture is cleaned up considerably. Also the sound is much clearer and in stereo, although there are moments where it seems the foley and looping are a little bit off (I'm hoping it's not the notorious DVD lip-synch problem, although since this movie is dubbed it's difficult to tell). That's about all for the good.

Now the bad. First off, as I mentioned, this version is dubbed (and no there isn't an original language option), and quite badly at that. This is regrettable considering that one thing that made the original so great was that it was multi-lingual, where Japanese spoke Japanese, Chinese spoke Cantonese and the Westerners spoke English. Here everything is dubbed into English, so the character differentiation is lost. Plus the voiceovers are wooden and unnaturally stilted, and the gist of the dialogue often strays from what is written in the subtitled version, which sometimes causes key thematic material to be lost (ie. Chen's lecture to the other students concerning the importance of a powerful attack). This, of course, is a common problem concerning dubbing.

Secondly, that great title music has been wiped out and replaced with something more typical, more "dramatic" in terms of Hollywood thinking, I suppose.

Finally, and I think this is the most unforgivable thing, the ending has been truncated and the dialogue overtly distorted to completely change the context. I won't say what it is, but I'll just say the original ending had much more resonance than the new one. Also, the new ending cuts out the segment that shows what becomes of the Jing Woo school. I have no idea why they chose to cut that part out--it doesn't even detract from the new ending, so what's the point?

Still, the fight scenes, which are among the best ever filmed, are in their entirety, and they look better than ever, and I guess that's most important. It's just too bad that they felt the need to tinker with the movie, making it overall not as strong as the original.

The original, UNDUBBED version of this movie is one of the greatest kung fu movies of ALL TIME (one of my personal top 10)

THIS DVD [STINKS]. I cannot believe they printed this to DVD without putting the Mandarin and Cantonese language tracks in. I was forced to return this movie because of that. The translation was terrible, much of the subtlety from the original movie were lost.

"Fist Of Fury" (or "The Chinese Connection", as it was released in Western markets) is arguably Bruce Lee's most popular movie among Asian audiences. In other words, the target audience at whom martial arts movies are aimed tend to elevate that one above most others. Which means it takes a lot of guts to try to remake it.

Having a talent like Jet Li available to play Bruce Lee's part helps a ton...but talent alone is not what places this remake above the Bruce Lee original. Simply put, this is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. The colors just jump off the screen, much as they are used to similar spectacular effect in Jet Li's later success "Hero". The costuming is top shelf, and the fight sequences are worthy of Bruce Lee's original (particularly the final showdown), and as noted in a previous review, there is significantly less wirework in this movie than in other Jet Li movies from the same era. The result is that the fight sequences, while awe-inspiring, are realistic and believable.

The characters are also well-delivered in spite of potentially crippling English dubbing that plagues most martial arts DVD's available in the West (Dimension should be better about this than most; this is not a low-budget distributor); you tend to feel good about the good guys and bad about the bad guys.

And the twists that separated the remake from Bruce's original are also very interesting and help to give this movie a strong identity of its own...the romantic ties involving both protagonists add a layer of depth unseen in most similar movies (the contrast between both female romantic leads is interesting and adds much to the substance of this film, absolutely shading the original) and before you know what's hit you, you find that you're actually watching a morality play concerning the evils of bigotry and racial intolerance (this was also a theme in Bruce Lee's original, but the remake does a better job of detailing how this is also a two-sided problem). And I much prefer the ending of the remake to that of the original, though there are those who will complain that the remake is more of a "Hollywood"-ized bastardization of the Asian soul of the original. But to me it just feels more satisfying.

This is a good recommendation to people who remember "The Chinese Connection" warmly and are skeptical over the notion of remaking it, as well as old-skool martial arts fans who believe that wirework is an abomination to the genre. And if you're at best a casual martial arts film buff, see this just for the care that was taken in its filming; truly a beautiful film, very easy on the eyes. Something for everyone.

I first saw this movie with the original soundtrack and with subtitles. I much prefered this, as in my opinion, dubbing sounds ridiculous and ruins the atmosphere in any movie. Its fair enough if some people prefer dubbing, but with todays DVD technology, it is perfectly possible to provide both.

The producers of this movie, to my great disappointed, failed to do this, and ruined a great movie in the process. I don't understand this, because as far as I can tell, it would be cheaper not to pay actors to dub the movie. In any case they could have provided both. And they definitely should have left the music alone.

1 star for the dvd, 4 stars for the original film. i really enjoyed this film when i saw it in the theatre in its original form. the action is great and jet li is just so fast in this one. then i quite excitedly received the dvd as a gift; excited, that is, until i realized that it didn't contain the original audio. i really don't like dubbing, that ruined it for me. i also realize that i may be in the minority on this, so i can understand wanting to include a dubbed track, but why not include both? i can't even watch this great film now.

i couldn't even bring myself to watch the dvd, but if they did a reasonable job, i would definitely recommend this to people who don't mind dubbing. hopefully, though, they'll release a "special edition" or something with subtitles, but i'm not holding my breath.

What the heck's wrong with Buena Vista getting the nerve to rescore, edit (sliced off a small portion of the ending), rewrite, and dub (and terribly dubbed at that) this masterpiece of a cultural film? The least they could have done was include the original version on the DVD. The only thing good about this DVD is the good clarity of the images. Disney needs to get their act together.

Let me start by saying the Chinese version of this film is my favorite movie of all time.

Dimension's dubbing and the liberties they take with the orginal script is both shocking and tactless. North American viewers who watch this version only see about 70% of the actual script. The rest of the sub-plots are all lost (particularly with the cook and the Dizzy Star House) and the simplified story also leads you to believe that Chinese Wushu is just a poor imitation of Japanese Karate when in the original script both country's martial arts were put into a positive light.

They can't even get the translation right at the end of the movie. The sign clearly reads,"Sick Men of Asia" and the dubbing has General Fujita pointing at his sign saying "I have a sign here that says 'Ching Wu is closed'."

Either the editors were saying that the Japanese General was an illiterate moron or, more likely, the American dubbing team didn't even bother looking at the sign before they translated the story.

You can buy this version, but my recommendation would be to watch it as a silent movie with the mute button on at all times. But you really are better off buying the VCD or VHS versions instead of this travesty.

To all the viewers who say the action is great but the storyline isn't, they need to get a grip. The reason you watch any action film, hollywood made or HK made isn't because of the plot but the action in the movie. Jet Li is the best Kung-Fu star out there now but please don't compare him to Jackie or Bruce. Jackie Chan has a style all his own and has dominated the HK scene for a long time. Bruce Lee made more realistic films in terms of choreography. People need to realize that in a real fight, you would probably fight more like bruce than Jet or Jackie. So stop saying that Jet Li would beat Bruce because it just wouldn't happen. That being said, this is by far the most superior film made in the last 5 years. The story is good(based on real life events)and the choreography is amazing...although for everyone who thinks that Jet Li really moves that fast, sorry...they speed the film up slightly during certain fight scenes. I like how they incorporated so many different styles of fighting into one movie, you had boxing, karate, jujitsu, aidkido, hapkido, chi-na joint locks, even a little bit of capoiera(sp?) I would have to say that this movie showed that jet can act as well as he can fight...more emotional range than bruce lee ever showed. Only Drunken Master 2 can challenge it for overall best martial arts film ever.

This movie's plot is practically a clone of Bruce Lee's Chinese Connection, but that doesn't bother me at all. Rather I compared the confrontation between Jet Li and the Japanese students in their dojo to the same scene in Bruce's movie. I was astounded to see how far fight choreography has come. Don't get me wrong, I'm not making light of Bruce Lee ( I own all his movies). But you can't deny that the choreography in this movie is at once more spectacular and even, dare I say it, more realistic ( save of course for scenes in which people break concrete with their bare hands, etc). I especially like it when a director literally has a room full of bad guys attack a hero en masse, rather than one at a time as seen in martial arts flicks of the past. Another comparison can be made with the Bruce Lee film by watching Jet Li take a slightly different approach to defense versus a katana. Whereas Bruce chose a nunchaku, Jet Li favors an ordinary belt. Don't be discouraged that this story is not at all original. But don't treat it like a carbon copy of the Chinese Connection either. I believe the director set out to deliberately take the old story and redo it with a modern, more innovative, approach to the fight choreography. This is a "must see" for fans of Hong Kong martial arts pictures.

One of the things I liked most about this move is, even though it's a remake of a classic Bruce Lee film, Jet Li never tries to imitate Bruce's mannerisms or fighting style. Instead he relies on his own charisma and fighting skills to carry the movie, and pulls it off nicely. This is probably the best martial arts film I've ever seen, excepting Bruce Lee's stuff of course.

Like a lot of other people I saw him first in Lethal Weapon, then again in Black Mask, but I wasn't really blown away until I rented Fist Of Legend - now I plan to buy every one of his movies I can get my hands on. My favorite scene in the entire movie was in the second (third?) fight scene when he punched the guy in the foot - that was awesome! Talk about making a statement. I also enjoyed being able to pick out the different styles used in the fight scenes. Especially the last fight with the General, with his straightforward, powerful striking style, the whole thing was very well done.

By the way, I just saw "Romeo Must Die" this weekend and it was great. Very well produced, with a good plot & lots of great actors, some welcome humor (not at Jet Li's expense, of course) plus the incredible fight scenes we've come to expect. A very impressive debut for Jet Li in his first starring role in the U.S. This guy does it right.