Wu Xia (2011) directed by Peter Chan

One of my favorite experiences over the last few days was watching the new Donnie Yen vehicle 'Wu Xia' otherwise known by some silly English international titles such as 'Dragon' and 'Swordsmen' and the like. Built and advertised as a detective story wrapped in an eventual martial arts mayhem package, 'Wu Xia' is a film which tests the lengths to which someone should go in order to exact justice and if it's a good idea to divorce the analytical facts from the emotional and social content of the actions involved in the crime.

Donnie Yen plays Jin-xi Liu, a mild-mannered maker of paper who lives in a small village with his wife Ayu (Wei Tang) and his two children -- one by his wife and the other by her first husband who one day took off leaving her with severe emotional abandonment issues. One day two thugs come to their small village and attempt to rob a store and Jin-xi reluctantly and quite awkwardly manages to defeat them when the store owner's life is threatened. But when the detective Bai-jiu Xu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) becomes involved in the routine investigation of the events, he notices small discrepancies in the stories and minor details which strongly hint that there's just no way a simple country bumpkin could have taken both these hardened criminals down. His single-minded pursuit at uncovering the truth behind the killings and the larger truth behind the shadowy background of Jin-xi's character will eventually open up a Pandora's box of destruction that may never be closed again.

A very well constructed movie shot in very stylish and quite modern fashion by Peter Chan (The Warlords) who employs a host of effects and camera techniques to piece together the puzzle of both the characters and the events. Normally this would be a warning sign to persons such as myself as with period films I'm more of a traditionalist and prefer my action grounded and intricate. But though this film does eventually bust out some impressive fisticuffs impressively choreographed by Donnie Yen himself, it's mainly a rumination on the folly of pursuing knowledge and justice with a complete disregard towards the damage it will cause how small the purpose of this goal can seem. In this regard the film excels as Kaneshiro is quite impressive as the driven but highly quirky detective who torments himself with mistakes made in the past while his attempt to avoid this in the future leads him down yet another faulty road due to the fearless nature of his passion. Normally this would be a great counter-balance to Donnie Yen and his generally limited acting abilities, but honestly I've never seen Donnie Yen perform this well before. I wouldn't go so far as to say his performance is award worthy or anything, but it is quite solid and I found myself impressed with how he could vacillate back and forth with such ease in presenting his character as a shy, country bumpkin or as somebody who you truly fear knowing he could end your life at any moment. Really good stuff from both men who are traditionally just men of action.

Though highly touted as a martial arts/detective/mystery hybrid, the film is pretty up front about the true facts with their heavy-handed hints and so the journey of revelation is really only through the eyes of Kaneshiro's character but more horribly I suppose, as reflected in the sad panic-stricken eyes of his wife who serves more or less as a common man grounding to the trauma of the events that eventually unfold. As the dark events become an eventuality and things get ugly, I was extremely pleased to see some of the forces behind this darkness were represented by martial arts movie legends such as Kara Hui (so deliciously bad) and the amazing Jimmy Wang Yu -- whose involvement in the final conflict was a nice tip of the hat to the fact that this film was originally meant to be a remake of the one-armed swordsman character that Jimmy Wang Yu made famous. But all in all I happily found this to be a damn fine movie a realization made all the more happy due to my ongoing disappointment with all of Donnie Yen's films after 'Ip Man'. There's not a lot of kung fu, but what there is of it is pretty dark and ugly stuff and the characters are rich and satisfying so just sit back and enjoy.