Rise of the Legend

There are some cool ideas in Rise of the Legend, but they aren't carried out well. The action looks fake, there's a bizarre fascination with poorly done CG fire, and the plot is dull.

I keep watching these Well Go movies, and they're always terrible, but for some reason that doesn't stop me. I saw the trailer for Rise of the Legend, and I thought it might have some interesting action scenes. I guess it did. There was one in water that was kind of cool. And I liked the idea of the fire one more than anything that really happened during it. The dialogue was horrendous, but I think that was partially the fault of whoever did the subtitles. The story probably would have been better if it had been translated differently. All the "F" names were confusing, with Fei and Fiery and Fa, and the first time I saw them I wondered if the subtitles were just messed up (they did refer to Fei as the "forth adopted son" for the entire time). 

I didn't recognize Eddie Peng from Tai Chi Hero at all. He seemed a lot better-looking in this movie than that one. Maybe he was just surrounded by people who weren't as good-looking in this one, though. Overall the action was pretty flat. It all seemed super fake. Even the giant "thoom" sound effect every time somebody got kicked was a bit much. 


The part where a couple guys came flying out of a building and they did a freeze and 360-degree camera shot around them was cool, though. And I did like the eventual reveal of how Fei and Fiery were working together. I don't know why Fa didn't just tell Fei who she was. I'm pretty sure he mentioned who it was he was in love with. The ways that Fiery and Fa died were kind of unecessary. I think they could've gotten things done without them dying, especially Fa. Chun could've killed the guy before he killed Fa. 

These movies do always look good. There was a lot of weird fake terrible CG fire in this one, though. I wonder if guys really wore their braids around their neck like that. The editing was all over the place, flashing around from one time period to the next in ways that didn't make any sense. They didn't make it super clear why Fei's clinic was burned down. Maybe because he beat up that one guy. 

I thought Fa looked like Angelababy, but I was like "no, she can't be in every Chinese movie." But it turns out that was her after all.