True Legend

Released by: Vivendi
Released on: September 13, 2011
Director: Yuen Woo-ping
Cast: Vincent Zhao, Zhou Xun, Andy On, Gordon Liu, Michelle Yeoh, Jay Chou
Year: 2010
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The Movie:

The first film that legendary martial arts choreographer Yuen Woo-ping has directed in some time, True Legend (also known as Beggar Su), is fairly evenly divided into two distinct sections. When the film begins, a general named Su Can (Vincent Zhao) saves a prince and in turn is offered a high ranking position. He declines, as he'd rather retire and start a family with his wife, Ying (Zhou Xun), the sister of Su's half brother, Yuan Lie (Andy On). In Su's place, Yuan Lie accepts the position and Su goes off to do his own thing. Five years later, Yuan Lie has learned that Su's father, Su Wan-kun (Bryan Leung), was the one who murdered his own father and decides to avenge his death by taking out Su. This is problematic in and of itself for Su, but add to this the fact that in the last five years Yuan Lie has learned the deadly Five Venom Fist technique and had armor sewn into his skin and you can see how he might soon find himself outmatched - which is exactly what happens when Yuan Lie tosses his half brother into a river. Unexpectedly, Ying jumps in after him, leaving the young son, Feng, they've had together alone with his evil uncle Yuan.

Now you'd think Su and Ying would be toast after that last battle, but nope, they're saved and nursed back to health by kindly Sister Yu (Michelle Yeoh). Once Su's back to his old self and his damaged arm has healed he decides to start training so that he can get back into shape, hunt down Yuan Lie and get his son back. While training he develops a serious taste for the sauce and starts to hallucinate about encounters with a wise old martial arts master (Gordon Liu) and the much younger but incredibly powerful God of Wu Shu (Jay Chou). As Su develops his own Drunken Fist style, Yuan's influence is spreading and Su and Ying risk losing their son to him forever if they don't act soon - but there's more to this than that, at least as far as Su is concerned.

Part biography of Su Can (featured in films prior such as Iron Monkey and Drunken Master) and part comic book style fantasy/action extravaganza, True Legend is enjoyable enough but wow is it ever erratic and disjointed. Characters are poorly developed and the relationship between Su Can and Yuan Lie (who is portrayed as a sort of evil gothic supervillain), which should be the backbone of the first half of the film, is flimsy and very poorly fleshed out to the point where their background together doesn't even seem to matter. What matters is they fight - that's about it. Thankfully, the fights as flashy enough and cool enough to help us overlook that, but don't go into this one expecting a whole lot more than surface level thrills as there isn't a whole lot of depth to what should have been a story rich with interesting and well thought out characters. On top of that, purists will no doubt take issue with the fact that CGI is used. A lot. And sometimes rather poorly. It's not just used here and there but is instead a tool that the filmmakers employ to create entire backgrounds and which they also integrate into the fight scenes from time to time to add various unnecessary stylistic flourishes.

Those fight scenes though, they're pretty fun. Not only is the battle between Su Can and Yuan Lie a keeper, but we also get some fun bits with Gordon Liu (a role obviously meant as a take on his Pai Mei wise old teacher character from Kill Bill) and Jay Chou (best known on western shores for his recent turn in the Green Hornet movie) as well. Michelle Yeoh is underused and doesn't get to strut her stuff the way she has in the past and a cameo from the late David Carradine seems superfluous but Vincent Zhao does fine in the lead and handles himself well in front of the camera, particularly once the Drunken Fist style becomes and important part of the picture. And those training montages that Yuen Woo-ping seems to enjoy filming so much? We get a few good ones, albeit sometimes with a mystical spin.

Lots of style, very little substance and we all know Yuen Woo-ping can do better based on some of the classics he's been involved with over the years, but True Legend does manage to cram in a whole lot of nutty action and some surprisingly dark drama into its almost two hour long running time. The movie is slick and enjoyable even if it shows blatant disregard for consistency of tone.

Video/Audio/Extras:

True Legend looks great in AVC encoded 2.35.1 1080p high definition. Some of the CGI is obviously that and there are a few shots where heavy CGI backgrounds seem to stammer a bit as the camera pans resulting in some jitter but other than that, detail is very good and color reproduction is top notch. There are strong black levels throughout and texture is quite good as well. There are no problems with mpeg compression artifacts or edge enhancement nor is there much in the way of noise reduction to note, though again, a lot of digital tweaking and tinkering has gone into this movie so things don't always look completely natural (nor are they supposed to).

The Mandarin language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track is very impressive indeed making great use of all channels in the mix and offering up a very solid low end that rumbles along quite nicely. The fight scenes are the most aggressive but even the quieter and more dramatic moments demonstrate nice use of ambient noise in the rear channels. The score is spread around very well and sounds great, while the levels are properly balanced throughout the film. Optional subtitles are provided in English and a dubbed English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track is also included.

Vivendi have included five featurettes on this disc and while they're all pretty brief they're worth checking out. The first is the four minuet Drunken Fist Master in which the film's writer and director discuss the characters in the film and various plot points. The six minute The Militia's Fortress shows us how digital effects were used to construct the impressive opening scene while the four minute long Thousand Buddha Cliff shows us how the sets and fight scenes involving the God Of Wushu character were done. Capturing Classical China is a three and a half minute peek at the film's location shooting and production design work and how that all played a part in the film's final look, while Choreographed Drunkeness is a seven minute segment in which Yuen Woo-ping and Vincent Zhou discuss Zhou's character's training in the movie and what was involved in choreographing some of his fight scenes.

Aside from that, the disc includes the film's international trailer, a music video, a pair of storyboard to scene comparisons, animated menus and chapter stops. The featurettes are in standard definition, the other extras in high definition.

The Final Word:

True Legend is worth checking out if you dig martial arts movies and don't mind an overabundance of CGI alongside and sometimes integrated into your fight scenes. The story is short on character development and far more concerned with action and effects than anything else, but it's entertaining enough if not likely to be deemed a classic anytime soon. You can't really fault Vivendi's Blu-ray release outside of the fact that it's a bit short on extras - it looks great and sounds even better.

Click in the images below for full size Blu-ray screen caps!