Other Titles • Once Upon a Time in China • Huang Fei-hong • Wong Fei Hung (1991)
Synopses for Once Upon a Time in China (1991)
1.
Never was a hero needed more...
China's been infected with a plague known as the Western world, and Wong Fei-hung (Jet Li) refuses to stand by and watch as his country is decimated by the foreign forces. A martial arts expert, Wong collides with the foreigners, their influence and especially, their firearms.
Leading his misfit militia, Wong is determined to stop the immoral slave trade that serves the California gold fields. When his favorite aunt is kidnapped to be sold as a prostitute, Wong must battle his countrymen and the superior firepower of the slave traders, all for the very soul of traditional China.
(17 votes)
2.
In one of the recurring gags of ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA, attempts to take Wong Fei Hung's picture always fail. The failure to capture the image of Wong (Jet Li) serves as an appropriate metaphor for the place of the Ching Dynasty folk hero in Chinese cultural memory. A legendary master of a variety of kung fu styles, Wong has been subject to numerous interpretations in dime novels and films since the 1930s. In the late 1970s an irreverent portrait of the young Wong Fei Hung emerged in DRUNKEN MASTER. In director Tsui Hark's hand, the beloved historical figure is given the full lionized treatment as he fights for dignity and self-determination against Western imperialists. A revisionist drama that recalls the struggle of the small-property owner fighting for her land in Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, Hark's epic is both a tragic and heroic examination of China's transition to modernity. Like the best of Hark's films (ZU: WARRIORS OF THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN), ONCE UPON A TIME contains imaginative fight sequences, including "no-shadow" kicks and a thrilling battle using bamboo ladders.
(17 votes)
3.
The first of a popular series (six in all) starring the charismatic and athletically adept Jet Li. Li plays legendary folk hero Wong Fei Hong, a late 19th century southern Chinese healer and kung fu master. The story begins with Western powers (American, British, and French) encroaching on the city of Canton. Wong is asked by the Black Flag army to safeguard the town by creating his own militia of kung fu experts. His assistants include the butcher "Porky" (Kent Cheng), a Chinese-American named Bucktooth So (Jacky Cheung), and his westernized "Auntie" Yee (Rosamund Kwan), a non-blood-related childhood friend for whom he holds a special affection. But the Westerners aren't the only problem in Canton. The Sha Ho gang terrorizes local businesses and has begun dealing with the Americans in exporting Chinese for slave labor and prostitution. A down-on-his-luck kung fu master named Iron Vest Yim (Yan Yee Kwan) has decided he needs to defeat Wong to open a school and Leung Fu (Jackie Chan contemporary Yuen Biao), a traveling opera troupe groupie, just keeps getting in the way. This epic martial-arts film showcases Li's amazing fighting and acrobatic skills and established Tsui Hark as a top-notch action film director. The final fight scene between Wong and Yim entails a dizzying orchestration of kicks and punches while teeter-tottering on ladders. The DVD features star bios, filmographies, trailers, and clips from early Wong Fei Hong films that starred veteran actor Kwan Tak Hing. --Shannon Gee
(16 votes)
4.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA
This martial arts classic follows the life of a legendary martial arts hero Wong Fei-Hung (Jet Li) and his fight against foreign forces' (English,French and American) plundering of China.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA PART II
In this sequel, martial arts expert Wong Fei-Hung (Jet Li) arrives in Canton to demonstrate the art of Chinese acupuncture. Unbeknownst to him, however, the city is on the brink of revolution, as pro-democracy rebels and anarchists alike threaten the stability of a crumbling dynasty.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA PART III
Wong Fei-Hung (Jet Li), Aunt Yee (to whom Wong is secretly betrothed) and his sidekick Chung arrive in Peking just as the empress announces a lion dance martial arts contest. Fists and feet fly in this gravity-defying, non-stop action adventure.
(15 votes)
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