Leftovers
(Warning: plot of Once Upon a Time in China 4, 5, 6 discussed in explicit detail)
Folks who aren't already diehard fans or are belatedly catching this on DVD or streaming usually watch only the first three installments but Tony Rayns in his Criterion appreciation insists Tsui Hark's total vision doesn't truly unfolds until you've seen Part 5.
Themes and overall structure are the work of more scholarly critics on tony streaming services; I'm really all about the still inventive action sequences (and yes maybe a word or two on themes and overall structure).
Once Upon a Time in China 4 (roughly: Wong Fei Hung 4 -- The Style of a King, 1993) swaps out Jet Li for Vincent Zhao and Tsui Hark for Yuen Bun and while the latter are lesser-known talents (Yuen was fight choreographer for Once Upon a Time in China 3 and this is his directorial debut) they give as good as they got: Zhao is introduced in the opening sequence kicking as high far wide as Li ever did, and Yuen accompanies his moves with as gracefully self-effacing a camera as in any Tsui film.
The narrative proposes yet another lion dance, this time not against various Shanghai gangs but against the Eight Nation Alliance. The costume designs are consequently far more elaborate: not just lions but centipede, eagle, dragon bristling with scythes and rifle barrels, and breathing literal fire.
That's to feed the xenophobia; for fanaticism we have the Red Lantern Sect-- female this time and, in the case of Miao Sanniang (Wang Jinghua), hopelessly smitten with Wong (Rosamund Kwan's 13th Aunt in turn has been replaced by Jean Wang's 14th Aunt, and she bristles at the prospect of feminine competition). One of the more spectacular setpieces has Wong fighting his way through the sect's various challenges, particularly the one involving the world's largest domino set, with Wong precariously perched and riding wave after wave of tumbling blocks. Acting as MVP (and the rare familiar face) is Hung Yan-yan's Clubfoot from Once Upon a Time in China 3, now a formidable Wong ally, helping even the lopsided odds against foreign powers.
The movie is bits of Once Upon a Time 2 and 3 (a religious sect; a lion dance) recycled with maybe not as much money but plenty of enthusiasm; the repetition does start to weary, plus there's a noticeable emphasis on special effects over actual wuxia (the first three chapters were a deft mix of both). Doesn't help that the film ends with the series' darkest conclusion, the foreigners having occupied Beijing and forced the Dowager Empress to flee-- Red Lantern nationalism as it turns out is worse than extreme it's inadequate; the foreign devils win, thanks in no small part to the rifles used to cut down Chinese resistance.
Of course the film never alludes to the Eight Nation Alliance's mission to rescue foreign diplomats, civilians, and soldiers trapped in Beijing by the Boxer Rebellion-- that would complicate the viewer's sympathy beyond what the script was willing to allow-- but the failure to disclose raises an interesting question: if he knew the full circumstance of the Boxer Rebellion, would Wong have chosen to side with the nationalists? I'd like to think he'd champion the cause of moderation, fighting for and against both sides towards some kind of makeshift peace... a far more challenging perhaps even impossible goal than anything Wong has taken up so far. Not what this fourth chapter is about, alas.
Once Upon a Time in China 5 (Wong Fei Hung 5: Dragon City Destroyer, 1994) catches our hero leaving his home town of Foshan for the relative safety of Hong Kong, only to be stranded on a small island menaced by pirates.
The action is small-scale-- these are mere pirates, not a fanatical sect or foreign power-- but Tsui Hark is back and so is the elegance one associates with his wuxia extravaganzas (not so much Yuen Bun's choreography as the camerawork that rejoins the choreography after so many years, like a familiar and badly missed dance partner). Fifth installment feels like a reunion of cast members: Hung Yan-yan's Clubfoot, Max Mok's Foon, Rosamund Kwan's 13th Aunt, and drawing from the first Once Upon a Time there's Kent Cheng's Porky Wing and Roger Kwok's Bucktooth So.
By now Wong seems to have internalized the lessons learned from previous films: Kung Fu is no match against guns and foreign powers wielding foreign weapons have seized Beijing. To confront this modern world you need to adopt modern methods, and for perhaps the first time in the series Wong actively seeks to train in another martial discipline, the art of gun fu-- a wink (or snipe if you like) at former collaborator John Woo, whose breakout hit A Better Tomorrow Hark produced.
Wong becomes (no big surprise) a reasonably competent marksman but the real revelation is Bucktooth So, who's not just a deadshot but a leaping gyrating gunslinger every bit as balletic as Chow Yun Fat in The Killer or Hard Boiled. The two plus Clubfoot plus the rest of Wong's motley crew battle with fist and foot and firearm in a fabulous treasure cave-- at one point grappling with the pirates' mummified leader, over a century old.
The film has this odd sense of irreversible transition-- Wong and friends and family have abandoned their homeland, the same way Wong abandoned his anti-gun stance. When the pirates are defeated (no spoilers here-- was there ever any doubt they would be defeated?) the government takes over but with sinister intentions that are never fully explained to local authorities, who in turn find themselves as shut out as Wong. It's Hong Kong's fears about the 1997 handover to China played out as a bizarre little comic vignette-- Hark can't resist the chance for one more bit of pointed commentary in what was effectively the last of his China epics.
Only it wasn't the last-- still one more epic, but not in China. Once Upon a Time in China and America (Wong Fei Hung: The Lion Goes West, 1997) sees Wong, 13th Aunt, and Clubfoot on their way to visit Bucktooth So in San Francisco. The film series' title was always meant to evoke the spirit of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America or at least its way of retelling old myths in a widescreen manner, so it's fascinating to see the series circle back to Leone, quoting classic Western tropes (unwashed bank robbers, corrupt town mayor, Mexican bandit with razor spurs) but with a decided Eastern kick.
Narratively the film is a grab bag unstructured mess; visually it hits one high after another (directed by Sammo Hung, an accomplished filmmaker and martial artist all his own)-- seeing Wong in war paint wearing a longhaired (scalped?) wig is one startling sight (he's lost his memory and has been adapted by a Native American tribe); watching Clubfoot battle Wong back to full memory is another. Operating on the principle that muscle memory is more powerful than semantic memory Clubfoot tries to cue Wong into assuming his No-Shadow Kick stance, then assaults him with Master Yim's Iron Vest, then Nap-lan's Cloth Lance (Clubfoot stops at the lance-- presumably Wong hasn't encountered a worthy opponent since).
The Native Americans are friendly enough-- the strikingly beautiful Chrysta Bell plays a small role as Wong's Native American fiancee-- but the gwailo that makes the biggest impression is Billy (stuntman/actor Jeff Wolfe), an amiable sidekick meant to show that not all Americans are sneering racist thugs.
The film was released in February of 1997; some four months later Hong Kong was handed over to the mainland. Of Tsui's anxieties about the former colony there was not a sign-- it's as if the filmmakers had shrugged their collective shoulders and decided to just tell the rest of their story. Some (like Bucktooth) will make a new home in The New World; some (like Wong, 13th Aunt, Clubfoot) will go back to China with its uncertain future. One makes one's choice, in effect, and does one's best accordingly.
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