The Review of the Jet Li’s Best Film ‘Fist of Legend’

Jet Li's Fist of Legend was a remake of Bruce Lee’s movie ‘The Chinese Connection’ in 1972, that’s an iconic movie, but actually Jet Li was never going to match Lee’s intense, glowering charisma. In fact, he comes off as something of a passive figure during much of this movie, only fighting because it’s the only way to handle a situation that he can understand. He never shows malice or anger.

We know, Jet Li’s ‘Fist of Legend’ is just as much a classic as ‘The Chinese Connection’, and that’s because of the fights scene in the film. It’s one of the all-time great fight movies in the Kung Fu film history, it was probably the best thing that Jet Li has ever done in his other films.

In 1994, when Jet Li and the film director Gordon Chan shoot this film, the fights in Hong Kong martial arts movies were fantastical affairs, in the film ‘Fist of Legend’, everything is fast and grounded and brutal. Li’s always been something of a charisma black hole, but he’s a star because of the way he moves, with a speed and precision and elegance that his peers just couldn’t match.

In fact, one of the strangest things about JetLi’s film ‘Fist of Legend’ is the idea that anyone wants to fight this guy at all. He’s practically a superhero, and you’d think that everyone on both sides would just want to stand back and watch him work. Instead, the Japanese are mad at him for beating up all their guys and for being Chinese, while the Chinese are mad at him for falling in love with a Japanese woman. This is one of those moments where it doesn’t exactly help to be a clueless Westerner when you’re watching these movies.

The best reason to see the film ‘Fist of Legend’ is probably its final fight scene, a long and varied throw down that pits Li against a towering and indestructible Japanese general, played by Billy Chau. This is one of those perfect fight scenes, a visceral and kinetic battle that honestly couldn’t possibly be any better than it is.

The film told the story as just about every other Hong Kong martial-arts period piece. It also put together the fact that Fist of Legend was a Chinese Connection remake. The great Yuen Woo-ping did the movie’s fight choreography, and his work in it is supposedly what got him the job in the first Matrix movie.