Director: Tsui Hark
Writer: Tsui Hark
Stars: Xiao Zhan, Zhuang Dafei, Tony Leung Ka-fai
Synopsis: Under Genghis Khan, the Mongolian army pushes west to destroy the Jin Dynasty, setting its sights on the Song Dynasty next. Amid internal conflicts among martial arts schools, Guo Jing unites the Central Plains’ warriors to defend Xiangyang, embodying courage and loyalty in the fight for the nation.
After co-directing the two-part propaganda piece The Battle of Lake Changjin with Chen Kaige and Dante Lam, Tsui Hark finally returns to his martial arts roots by adapting chapters 35 to 40 of Jin Yong’s The Legend of the Condor Heroes. With the subtitle The Gallants, the wuxia epic tracks the confrontation between the Mongolian army and the Song Dynasty. It follows martial artist Guo Jing (Xiao Zhang), who is caught in the middle of the conflict. For the bulk of its hefty 147-minute runtime, Hark focuses on a love triangle between Guo Jing, Huang Rong (Zhuang Dafei), and Hua Zheng (Zhang Whenxin); the latter being the daughter of Mongolian emperor Genghis Khan (Baya’ertu).
Moving at a rapid pace, Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants wastes no time throwing the audience into the throes of war and introducing us to its hero, who has mastered martial arts techniques from several masters. As digitally stitched as some of the fights may be, Hark hasn’t lost his touch from the moment he came on the scene during the Golden Age of Hong Kong cinema with Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain, A Better Tomorrow III: Love & Death in Saigon, and the Once Upon a Time in China series, which put Jet Li on the map as a worldwide sensation through his turn as Wong Fei-hung.
Working in Hollywood with Jean-Claude Van Damme for Double Team and Knock Off sharpened his action filmmaking skills to new horizons, making him a recognizable figure for genre aficionados. As he returned to China, Hark continued to make movies, though with varying degrees of quality: chintzy visuals, unimpressive screenplays, and (seemingly well-mounted) action sequences that sadly lacked the anarchism he was most known for were highly prevalent. Watching Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants, it feels like Hark has combined his best and worst post-digital qualities. When shooting on film, Hark crafted images of impeccable, often poetic beauty that transcended the mere “epicness” of a large-scale action set piece and turned it into a work of magnifying art.
The thunderstorm confrontation between Wong Fei-hung and Iron Shirt Yim in the first Once Upon a Time in China is forever etched in my memory for precisely that reason. It was as if the doors of cinema had opened to me in ways I never imagined were possible before fully delving into Hark’s filmography, which, to be honest, has enthralled me more than it has disappointed. That’s why I was compelled by the film’s digitized style, which never tries to hide its technical shortcomings. Hark, who has also designed its action scenes, makes each punch or movement feel like the grandest possible act when characters are pitted against one another. An early fight sequence meant to inform the audience of Guo Jing’s powers is hampered by some of the worst CGI of Hark’s career: green screens so fake it feels like we’ve been transported to the Megalopolis, or noticeable digital stitches to move a character from one place to the next (as seen in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga) making it look like a video game cutscene.
Yet, compared to the aforementioned blockbusters, there’s a sincere earnestness in Hark’s image-making that one can’t look away from despite the severe dip in quality we’ve seen from the filmmaker. Once Upon a Time in China (or Green Snake, his most artful motion picture), this is not. Many will unfairly compare apples to oranges, which is understandable given the streak of masterpieces this man has released in his lifetime. But I’ve always been fascinated by filmmaking traditionalists now being confronted with new technologies – how do they respond with ever-changing aesthetics, cameras, and viewing habits? For Hark, the first step was to shoot Flying Swords of the Dragon Gate in 3D, which he then used in two installments of the Detective Dee franchise.
However, those films had many practical qualities that were completely absent in Legends of the Condor Heroes, his most “digitized” film yet. Each computer-generated pixel renders some of the visual poetry he wants to give to his superimpositions, or the use of contrasting colors when staging a set piece near peach blossoms seem completely artificial. A few scenes later, he’ll stage a fight scene so meticulously constructed, both in how he operates the digital environment he’s working in and his ever-intricate choreographies, that any half-baked sequence feels like a fluke, especially when it comes to the movie’s final confrontation.
Maybe that’s where the entire budget went because the duel between Guo Jing and the primary antagonist, Ouyang (Tony Leung Ka-fai), is Hark in his element – blending his conception of wuxia with the latest and greatest in modern filmmaking sensibilities. To reveal more would mean spoiling the fun, but it made the (few) people in the auditorium lean forward to the screen in total excitement, proving that, despite some of his late-stage missteps, he still has the touch that made him such an iconic figure in Martial Arts filmmaking. One has to remember that Hark was once the envy of Hong Kong cinema, and, with John Woo, Ringo Lam, Sammo Hung, Ching Siu-tung (and many others), was singlehandedly responsible for ushering in a new age of technical sophistication and artistry in their motion pictures.
It’s a shame that, despite his constant experimentation with form, the story in Legends of the Condor Heroes leaves a lot to be desired. Both Zhan and Dafei give fine performances but have little sense of chemistry together, despite frequent attempts at infusing expressivity within the romantic triangle, both visually and in how Hark films both bodies connecting with each other. It also doesn’t help that most of the conflict seems too scattershot, with endless bursts of exposition that feel like neverending plotting instead of moving the narrative forward. It ultimately leads to a bloated and punishingly talky second half to set up all moving pieces for the climax, which doesn’t neatly wrap up its story. It prefers to abruptly end to showcase an elongated post-credits scene with even more elaborate martial arts choreographies than what the film itself demonstrated.
Hey, I’ll take more Hark-choreographed martial arts sequences any day, but I long for the times when his scripts had more substance than haphazardly constructed plotting to set up for the (potential) next chapter in the franchise. Still, one can’t argue that he has forever changed the landscape of modern action cinema and has redefined the artistic qualities of a genre that, before he showed the world what he was capable of, was labeled as nothing more than “popcorn entertainment.” Action is the only form of emotional catharsis worthy of being experienced on a larger-than-life screen. Tsui Hark fundamentally understands this. That’s why he’ll always be in a league ahead of his contemporaries, even if Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants will end up as one of his weakest efforts from his staggering filmography.
