In 2014, Donnie Yen and Wang Baoqiang could be said to be close friends. After the annual slag film "Frozen Man: The Gate of Rebirth", the two met again in "One Man's Martial Arts", and a bloody battle started again. Donnie Yen's skills have long been known to us, and his appearance in action movies is not news. But Brother Baoqiang is different. In the eyes of the audience, he is still the silly root in "A World Without Thieves", the killing Matt in "Tai 囧", and the rural non-mainstream in "Hello, Mr. Tree", none of these The exceptions are dick characters. In last year's well-received "Guild War", Brother Baoqiang made a cameo appearance as a local tyrant, achieving the first small counterattack in his life. However, after "Tian Destined", fans were in a trance again. It turns out that our brother Bao Qiang can also play a cold-blooded killer who is unsmiling.
After Wang Baoqiang became famous, he almost put the phrase "I learned it in Shaolin Temple" on his lips. He has always had a kung fu dream, which was finally realized in "Frozen Man", but Brother Baoqiang didn't expect to wake up. It's ice and snow. Many people may think that Wang Baoqiang's martial arts films are just playing tickets, but in the movie "One Man's Martial Arts", he killed another carbine! And this movie is almost tailor-made for him, Donnie Yen just came out to warm up.
The movie "One Man's Martial Arts" is based on a complicated and confusing murder case, telling the story of the crazy murder of Feng Yuxiu, a martial arts fan played by Wang Baoqiang. In essence, "One Man's Martial Arts" is not a traditional kung fu movie, but a serial killer movie. The plot of the film is also built around a chain of murders, which seems bizarre but is actually reasonable. But unlike the perverted killers in other movies, Feng Yuxiu has no interest in maiming weak women who have no power to tie the chicken.
In "One Man's Martial Arts", Feng Yuxiu is a typical paranoid, he is obsessed with martial arts and cannot control himself. Feng Yuxiu was indeed a perverted murderer, but he did not kill for no reason. Every time Feng Yuxiu killed a kung fu master, it was a practice of his kung fu concept. There are two motives for Feng Yuxiu's mad killing in the film: first, "Kung Fu is a killing technique", in his opinion, Kung Fu is used to kill people; second, the ambition to become the number one in the world, the inflated desire for power gradually twisted his mind. After understanding the above two points, we also understand Feng Yuxiu's seemingly unreasonable murder logic. However, the purpose of Feng Yuxiu killing so many kung fu masters was to lure out Xiahou Wu, who had retired. For this reason, he even threatened the latter with his younger sister.
But does the perverted murderer played by Wang Baoqiang really stand up? Even though the action scenes of the film are splendid, punches and kicks are well-intentioned, it still can't cover up the emptiness and exaggeration of the characterization. Feng Yuxiu in the movie is like a lump of elm, his image is completely supported by the words "Kill! Kill! Kill!" and the behavior "Fight! Fight! Fight!" His crazy emotions We don't know much about the world. Normal people understand that Feng Yuxiu's mad murder has complicated reasons, but how did the director deal with it? Feng Yuxiu only occasionally made a few sharp eyes, or occasionally moved out a few cold lines, other than that, there was absolutely no place to show Wang Baoqiang's acting skills. Anyone who has watched the reality show "Let's Run, Brother" knows that Wang Baoqiang is indeed very skilled, and at first glance, he has practiced. But the flaw in the movie "One Man's Martial Arts" is that Wang Baoqiang had a great time playing, but Feng Yuxiu's soul was caught in the crack of the door.
So what is Donnie Yen's contribution to the film? As a powerful action star, it would be a big loss to invite him to come and not let him show two tricks. Besides, Donnie Yen is also the action director of the film. In "One Man's Martial Arts", Donnie Yen's profound skills are mainly reflected in two scenes. The first scene is at the beginning of the film. He was a prisoner and wanted to get out of prison to solve the case. He was forced to fight 17 people with his bare hands. This scene is very reminiscent of his similar scene in "Ip Man". In that movie, Donnie Yen is also one enemy. The second notable action scene is his confrontation with Brother Baoqiang at the end of the film. Cinephiles familiar with the genre of action movies know that the duel at the end of the film has always been the finale of the film, and Westerns, samurai movies, and even the superhero movies that have become popular in recent years have followed this tradition.
The action scenes at the end of the film are of course brilliant, so why did Feng Yuxiu get along with Xiahou Wu? Because Feng Yuxiu thinks that he can only become the real No. 1 in the world by defeating Xiahouwu, and because Xiahouwu is an expert who really understands kung fu. Speaking of which, we have to take another look at this Xiahou Wu played by Donnie Yen. In the film, he boasted that he could assist Chief Inspector Lu Xuanxin in solving serial murder cases, because he understands kung fu, because only he is well versed in the mystery of "fist first, then leg and second capture, and the five-in-one weapon in the home", and the film's narrative. Just follow this line. Speaking of which, it is not difficult to find that director Chen Desen just wanted to borrow the movie "One Man's Martial Arts" to teach the audience a lesson and tell everyone what real kung fu is, so as to lament the disappearance of kung fu and the end of the era of kung fu films .
As a work that pays tribute to Hong Kong action movies, attentive audiences will find that there are many movie posters of Bruce Lee in the film, which are indirectly mixed with the movie scenes of former Kung Fu stars such as Jackie Chan and Liu Jialiang. The director even moved out Shaw Brothers' top brand David Jiang. I still remember that in the Hong Kong film industry in the 1967s, the Shaw Brothers family dominated, and the martial arts kung fu films produced by Shaw Brothers every year accounted for more than half of its film production. In "One Man's Martial Arts", Jiang David is already a very old man. Wouldn't it be a loss of face for Hong Kong movies to let him bow down under Brother Baoqiang's pomegranate skirt? Those fans who really love kung fu movies can only dig out Zhang Che's old works to relive the heroic appearance of David Jiang. The era of kung fu movies is really over, and hard bridges and hard horses seem to be slag. Nowadays, there are not many people who are obsessed with kung fu or kung fu movies. If there was, it would only be a neurotic guy like Feng Yuxiu. But how will it end? Not a tragic death at gunpoint! The person who practiced martial arts was none other than Tang Qianyan. At first glance, the character Feng Yuxiu looks like a second-hand, but in fact, he is just too addicted to the outdated world of Kung Fu, and is an out of date.
The decline of kung fu martial arts films is an indisputable fact, just like the decline of Western films in the United States. Today, it is already the world of superheroes. Just think, isn't it very LOW to let American youths watch two cowboys dueling on the screen on horseback? After all, kung fu and martial arts films are unique to China, and it would seem rude to let them down completely. It is worth encouraging to be innovative, but let's not forget that an important reason for the decline of kung fu movies is that audiences are tired of the program from beginning to end.
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