True Legend – Su Qi-Er (2010)

Directed by: Woo-ping Yuen | 115 minutes | action, drama, history | Actors: Man Cheuk Chiu, Xun Zhou, Michelle Yeoh, Xiaogang Feng, Andy On, Luxia Jiang, Chia Hui Liu, Ka-Yan Leung, Will Liu, Jay Chou, Xiaodong Guo, David Carradine, Conan Stevens

‘True Legend’, or ‘Su Qi-Er’, is set in China during the 19th century, where the likeable and humble Su (Man Cheuk Chiu), a general of the Qing dynasty, fights side by side with his stepbrother Yuan Lie ( Andy On). Not much later, this stepbrother turns out to be a bitter, hateful despot. Su’s son and his wife Yuan Ying (Xun Zhou) are kidnapped and Su is seriously injured. As the story progresses, Su must retrain, but must also find herself again. This sounds like the typical story of the hero who has to work his way up to defeat the villain at the end of the movie. So not really original. There is also little logic in the story at the end of the film – where you would normally expect the end of the film, a new topic is suddenly tackled, and the original story of the film has actually completely changed.

In addition to the main character Su, the cast consists of many well-known names. For example, the role of Sister Yu is played by the Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh, who is known for roles in ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’, ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’. Chinese pop star, director and actor Jay Chou also features in the film – he plays the role of the Wushu god. A nice detail is that towards the end of the film a role is also reserved for David Carradine (he played the role of Bill in ‘Kill Bill’, among others). This would also be one of his last roles before his death in June 2009. Also for Chia Hui Liu (he also played in ‘Kill Bill’, where he plays the roles of master Pai Mei and Johnny Mo) there is a small role put aside – he plays the drunken bearded companion of the Wushu god. It seems that this star cast is mainly there to give the film more commercial prestige, as the roles of the stars are small and add little to the story.

In the action scenes we clearly see the expertise of the director Woo-Ping Yuen. While he has also appeared in many action films in the past, he is mainly known as an action choreographer, collaborating on ‘Kill Bill’, ‘The Matrix’, and ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ among others. So plenty of experience in that area. The action scenes therefore look flashy and fluid, with many different effects being used. Slow motion images are interspersed with accelerated images, and it looks good as a result. The fight scenes, which take place in many unique locations, are clearly the strongest point of the film.

The locations are original and beautifully made. The place where Su fights the Wushu god, for example, is a large temple-like building, with large creepy heads adorning it. The images of this look very good. Unfortunately, this is skewed in relation to other scenes where the decor is less developed – it doesn’t look very realistic everywhere, and the decor sometimes seems to have been simply pasted back. As is not uncommon with these kinds of films, the motto ‘everything can be broken’ applies and it does – the only function of the furniture and decorations present seems to be that it has to be broken. For fans of the real fighting spectacle where the story is subordinate to the action – in this film of a good level – this is a fine film to digest. But it doesn’t get much further than this – the story is too simple for that and the characters are too stereotypical. Unfortunately, the well-known cast cannot change this fact.