As a child, Dong Tian-bao is brought to the shaolin temple, where Zhang Jun-bao will he his senior, even though Jun-bao is younger and smaller. Even from a young age, the ambitious Tian-bao manipulates the innocent Jun-bao into deferring to him and getting into all sorts of trouble. However, as they grow into adulthood, Jun-bao (Jet Li) and Tian-bao (Chin Siu-ho) remain friends, competitors, and troublemakers, although Tian-bao is the instigator. Always ambitious and hot-tempered, Tian-bao is driven over the edge by a cheating opponent during a shaolin tournament. When Jun-bao tries to stick up for him, both end up getting expelled from the temple. After some misadventures, they fall in with a group of rebels fighting against the corrupt tyranny of the evil governor Liu Jin (Sun Jian-kui). They also befriend Ling (Yuen Cheung-yan), an eccentric Daoist priest, as well as Siu Lin (Michelle Yeoh, credited as Michelle Khan), a musician and swordswoman searching for her husband.
After a devastating loss, a former shaolin monk develops a new fighting style to defeat an old friend turned ruthless enemy. As I've said before, when it comes to martial arts history, it's a difficult challenge to separate history from folklore and legend. That's certainly the case with Zhang San-feng (known by other names, including his courtesy name of Jun-bao), the attributed creator of taijiquan ("Supreme Ultimate Fist"). Modern historians question Zhang's connection to the creation of taijiquan in any way - the attribution comes from a book written in 1670 by Huang Zong-xi, a historian and philosopher - but as far as I can tell, it hasn't been entirely ruled out either. Even the years of his life are uncertain, assuming he wasn't entirely fictional to begin with. While most have Zhang living in the 13th century, during the late Song Dynasty, he's also been placed in the Yuan and Ming dynasties, while other legends say he was a student of Daoist poet Xu Xian-ping, who lived during the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907). Then again, Zhang was thought to be either immortal or to have lived for hundreds of years - I'm pretty sure we can attribute that one to folklore. Zhang San-feng showed up in various wuxia (martial chivalry) novels, particularly Jin Yong's Heaven Sword & Dragon Sabre, the last book in his acclaimed Condor Heroes trilogy, which depicts him as the founder of the Wudan sect. Zhang seems to show up more often on television than film, for some reason, beginning with 1991's Young Zhang San-feng, starring Kenny Ho. His most iconic portrayal, however, would arguably be in this film, starring Jet Li...as long as you're not watching an American release. (More on that later.) Kenny Ho in Young Zhang San-feng (1991) The Tai Chi Master was the fifth of six movies (!!!) made in 1993 to star Jet Li, part of an impressive comeback streak. Despite the success of his film debut, Shaolin Temple (1982), and its two sequels, Li's career ran into a few bumps soon afterward. The making of the third film in the Shaolin trilogy, Martial Arts of Shaolin (1986), was a frustrating experience for Li. Now more experience and worldly, he resented the state-mandated pittance he received as the star of the films compared to the profits they made. (As a reminder, these films were made in China, not Hong Kong.) Not only that, but Hong Kong director and choreographer Lau Kar-leung was brought on to direct, bringing his own crew with him and giving them preferential treatment at the expense of the mainland Chinese cast, which irritated Li (and understandably so). After leaving the Shaolin franchise and relocating to Hong Kong, he channeled his frustrations into his directorial debut, Born to Defense (1988), which didn't go well on any front. Next, Golden Harvest unsuccessfully tried to launch Li's career in America with Dragon Fight (1989), opposite future superstar Stephen Chow, and The Master (1992), directed by Tsui Hark. Martial Arts of Shaolin (1986) However, Li's career came roaring back to life with Tsui Hark's Once Upon a Time in China (1991), in which Li portrayed beloved folk hero Wong Fei-hung, one of his most famous roles. (More on this in a future review.) A huge critical and commercial success, the follow-up Once Upon a Time in China II (1992) was an even bigger hit, and Li was now in high demand as one of Hong Kong's top box office stars. After the third installment (1993), Li was ready to move on from working with Tsui, and kept busy for the rest of the year with Corey Yuen's Fong Sai Yuk and its sequel, Wong Jing's Last Hero in China and Kung Fu Cult Master (the latter of which featured Sammo Hung as Zhang San-feng), and of course, The Tai Chi Master, directed by Yuen Woo-ping. (Li was originally set to star in Kirk Wong's Crime Story, but after his business manager was murdered by the Triads, he opted to do something not connected to modern-day organized crime. Jackie Chan ended up starring in the film, giving him a chance to shine in a more dramatic and less action-oriented role.) Li also served as the producer for The Tai Chi Master through his short-lived production company, Eastern Production, as an attempt to take more control over his career. Once Upon a Time in China (1991) Fong Sai Yuk (1993) WARNING: Here be spoilers! Read further at your own risk! As a child, Dong Tian-bao is brought to the shaolin temple, where Zhang Jun-bao will he his senior, even though Jun-bao is younger and smaller. Even from a young age, the ambitious Tian-bao manipulates the innocent Jun-bao into deferring to him and getting into all sorts of trouble. However, as they grow into adulthood, Jun-bao (Jet Li) and Tian-bao (Chin Siu-ho) remain friends, competitors, and troublemakers, although Tian-bao is the instigator. Always ambitious and hot-tempered, Tian-bao is driven over the edge by a cheating opponent during a shaolin tournament. When Jun-bao tries to stick up for him, both end up getting expelled from the temple. After some misadventures, they fall in with a group of rebels fighting against the corrupt tyranny of the evil governor Liu Jin (Sun Jian-kui). They also befriend Ling (Yuen Cheung-yan), an eccentric Daoist priest, as well as Siu Lin (Michelle Yeoh, credited as Michelle Khan), a musician and swordswoman searching for her husband. However, while Jun-bao is content to work in the restaurant operated by the rebels as a front, Tian-bao's ambitions lead him to the army, where he is determined to climb the ranks by any means necessary...including using Jun-bao to set a trap for the rebels. Most of the rebels are killed in the ensuing battle except for Jun-bao, Siu Lin, and Ling, along with a small handful of others who blame Jun-bao for the defeat. As Tian-bao goes mad with power, Jun-bao is driven mad with guilt and the shock of his old friend's betrayal, and Siu Lin and Ling are unable to help. However, he eventually stumbles upon the secrets of what will become taijiquan, snapping him out of his madness. Renaming himself Zhang San-feng and armed with this new fighting style, he then sets forth to defeat Tian-bao once and for all. After his victory, he returns to the sanctuary of the shaolin temple, where he will pass on his skills to a new generation of martial artists. This is definitely a highlight of Jet Li's career, although in some ways, it's a typical role for him. After depicting Wong Fei-hung and Fong Sai-yuk, he's once again playing a figure from Chinese history and folklore, a role he felt best suited his classical martial arts training. What stands out about Zhang Jun-bao, however, is the character's naiveté, from the way Tian-bao manipulates him as a child to his utter lack of understanding of the way the world outside the shaolin temple works. Even when no longer a monk, he still sticks to a vegetarian diet, in contrast to Tian-bao, whose family couldn't afford meat and who takes advantage of his freedom from the temple to indulge himself. Jun-bao's innocence also serves to bite him in the ass, unfortunately, when Tian-bao betrays him and the rebels. It's unfortunate that the resulting trauma is played for laughs instead of going for the dramatic route (and takes up way too much screentime). I get that The Tai Chi Master is intended as an action comedy, and Jet Li can do comedy extremely well, but it still feels like a missed opportunity - as well as offensive to people who indeed have gone through mental trauma. As for our villain, Dong Tian-bao is one of the more memorable ones I've come across in martial arts cinema. He's no tragic villain - even as a child, we see his arrogance, resentment, and knack for manipulating the guileless Jun-bao. Unlike Magneto or Anakin Skywalker, who started off as good people at heart driven to commit terrible deeds, he was a bad seed all along. If anything about him is tragic, it's that Jun-bao and his superiors at the shaolin temple weren't able to recognize this sooner and intervene. There may be a part of him that does value his friendship with Jun-bao, but it's a toxic friendship, and it's hard not to think of what Jun-bao might have become without Tian-bao around. There are some attempts to humanize him, such as his friendly bouts with Jun-bao, his indignation when his tournament opponent cheats, and his attraction to Fennie Yuen, but these only serve to show how far he's fallen by the end of the film. Still, there's more to Tian-bao than just being a generic villain, and Chin Siu-ho does an excellent job bringing him to life. Donnie Yen was originally offered this role, but he turned it down. Even though I'm a hardcore Donnie Yen fan, Chin plays this part well enough that I don't find myself missing him. The Tai Chi Master boasts a strong supporting cast, although some characters are more developed than others. Michelle Yeoh has a decent role to work with, with plenty of opportunities to show off her acting skills and get in on the action, including a fight scene on stilts. While she can - and does - chew the scenery as well as everyone else is doing, she knows how to be subtle as well, especially when it comes to Sui Lin's unspoken (and unrequited) attraction to Jun-bao. Yuen Cheung-yan plays a comic relief role who can actually be funny, and he gives Yeoh someone even more over the top to play off of. Sun Jian-kui as the evil governor is a mostly one-dimensional villain with little substance to him, and his minions are so over-the-top in their cruelty and greed, it's almost ridiculous, but he fits in nicely with the tone of the rest of the film. The biggest surprise was Yu Hai as a jerkass shaolin master, a rival of Jun-bao's superior. Typically, he plays benevolent, patient mentors, as he did in the Shaolin Temple trilogy as well as Keanu Reeves's Man of Tai Chi (2013). As for the martial arts in this movie, there's a TON of it, mostly wire-fu, a trend kicked off by the success of the first Once Upon a Time in China film. (Not that previous films didn't employ it, but OUATIC did a lot to re-popularize it.) With Yuen Woo-ping as action choreographer as well as director on this film, it might be redundant to say the fights are of high quality, as well as creative. There's an excellent fight between Li and Chin against several dozen shaolin monks armed with staves, and numerous battles between rebels and Liu Jin's forces. One fight has Li taking out a bunch of soldiers using only his head, including where he bounces around on it to deliver fatal finishing moves. The final fight between Li and Chin is a bit of a letdown, and it's here that the wirework and cinematography get in the way of the action instead of enhancing it, but it's not bad by any means. (They would clash again in Fist of Legend, which I will definitely be getting to.) As an interesting footnote, although Li had worked with action choreographer Yuen Woo-ping on Once Upon a Time in China II and would do so again in a number of other films, including Fist of Legend (1994), Black Mask (1996), and Fearless (2006), this was the one and only time Yuen ever directed Li. Beyond The Tai Chi Master's strengths as a martial arts film, it's also beautiful to look at, with its opulent sets and lavishly-costumed cast of thousands, and the wild wire-fu choreography only adds to the movie's striking visuals. William Wu provides a gorgeous musical score, including a rousing opening song that plays over the opening titles, that only enhance the grandeur and epic scale. The pacing is a bit uneven, but a solid amount of screentime is dedicated to establishing our characters as well as their motives and relationships with each other. The third act is where things slow down the most before the final confrontation, spending too much time on failed attempts to cure Jun-bao. At least the scenes of Tian-bao training his soldiers to the point of self-destruction and his utter ruthlessness serve to show how far off the deep end he's gone. The Tai Chi Master was only a modest success at the box office, most likely thanks to the overabundance of wire-fu spectacles released since Once Upon a Time in China. While I wasn't able to get a sense of the critical response among Hong Kong audiences from when it came out, it's highly regarded by modern viewers - most of the reviews I've seen on various kung fu movie fan sites have also been positive. In 1996, Yuen Woo-ping co-directed an in-name-only sequel, Tai Chi Boxer, which featured Wu Jing in his first starring role. (I haven't seen it, so I don't know anything about it and can't vouch for its quality.) Like many Asian movies released by Miramax/Dimension Home Video, The Tai Chi Master was badly butchered when it arrived in the US in the early 2000s. Not only was the title renamed to Twin Warriors to oversell Michelle Yeoh's action quota in the film, but scenes were removed, and William Wu's musical score was replaced by a generic, lifeless music that doesn't match the onscreen emotions or action. The tepid dubbing makes the humor fall flat - not that the low-brow humor was anything to write home about to begin with, but the dubbing sure didn't help. Worst of all, references to Jun-bao renaming himself Zhang San-feng were removed, as were other Chinese cultural references, which is flat-out disrespectful. In fact, that erasure is why I prioritized reviewing this one as opposed to a couple of Li's other films I've got on my list, and also why I spent some time on the legend of Zhang San-feng. If you're looking to snag this movie, and it's worth getting if you're a budding fan of the genre, I would avoid anything with the Twin Warriors label on it and make sure to get the Hong Kong version. The Hong Kong DVD release from Universe doesn't have the best picture quality, but at least it shows the uncut film and features the original Chinese language track with English subtitles. (I have no idea what Miramax's Dragon Dynasty release is like, but after how they botched the Fist of Legend release, I'm skeptical.) The Tai Chi Master is a fun, colorful martial arts adventure that shows its star and director at their prime. It also has some decent substance to it, moreso than some other martial arts films I've seen, but without a heavy dramatic weight to it. It's a tremendously enjoyable spectacle, and if you take that approach to it, you'll be in for a great time.
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