There are hints at self-awareness, of nuance: the fact that so many of Lee’s fellow Chinese feel the effects of his violence, the collateral damage of his rampage, is felt. No depth, no complexity (compare Li’s Chenzhen, torn between two cultures and two families, genuinely mixed in his sympathies), simply the pure muscular expression of violent revolution, of the (racial) underclass rising up against their (apparently motiveless?) oppressors. Only occasionally is he allowed to express anything other than agony: when he adopts disguises to spy on the Japanese in his one romantic scene with Nora Miao. He learns it was by the Japanese, he kills them). Bruce Lee’s Chenzhen is nothing more or less than a force of nature, bursting on screen in agonized grief, progressing from there through an agonized murderous rampage (in 1930s Shanghai he returns to find his master has been killed. Here is an index.Īmazing how simple the plot is in comparison with Gordon Chan’s Jet Li-starring remake Fist of Legend. Running Out of Karma is my on-going series on Johnnie To and Hong Kong cinema.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |