Once Upon a Time in China (Wong Fei-hung, 1991)

Tsui Hark

Hong Kong

134 mins, color, Cantonese (English subtitles)

If anyone ever though that Tsui Hark can only do nonsensical films with fleeting ghosts, mysterious fighters, or gangsters, here's the proof that he can also do nonsensical period films based on legendary characters. Now granted, keeping the original title would mean little to these bastard Western audiences, but Wong Fei-Hung was a famous martial arts expert, patriot, and a lot of other things, amateur physician being only one of many skills, who lived at the end of the 19th and the turn of the 20th centuries and generally disliked the foreign interference with China. According to the curator of the Dryden Theater, Tsui Hark made this bit of xenophobia to appeal to the average Chinese person, who is nationalist, and anti-Western. This may well be the case, but I will not be debating the political message of this period film. In fact, I am not quite sure there was a political message.

Set in late 19th century, OUATIC is the exaggerated story of Wong Fei-Hung (Jet Li), who walks the tightrope between Chinese legality and animosity against these damn foreigners (American, British, and French) who plunder his country and eat with forks. Of course, there are tons of corrupt, myopic, stupid, and inept Chinese government officials who are bent on trading with the enemy, even if it means beating up on thugs of local extraction. Now, Fei-Hung is pretty contained himself, but his disciples are something of hot heads and constantly get him in trouble with the ever-vigilant authorities. Foon (Yuen Biao) is a dumb aspiring actor (aren't they all?) who can't seem to figure out whose side he needs to be on, which is why just about everyone pounds on him like a piñata. At first he gets Porky (Kent Cheng) to fight some "insurance agents" for him, then he gets Iron Robe Yim (Yan Kwan Yee) to be his master. Unfortunately, that last one has really flexible morals, which don't sit well with Foon's confused, but good-natured, view of the world. Also, they don't sit well with the fact that Yim wants to beat up Fei-Hung, whose Aunt Yee (Rosamund Kwan) Foon has taken to liking.

As if that part of the plot wasn't enough, Tsui Hark has a throng of hilariously stupid Westerners run amok, shooting people in excruciating slow motion (bullets ripping through clothes, blood spurting in all directions, including physically implausible ones, etc.), speak with uniquely English accents, and behave as the complete assholes that they are. The problem for the brave Chinese is that said Westerners also have guns, and plenty of them. This is not good for the patriotic Chinese, who seem intent on gauging out each other's eyes first for no reason whatsoever. Maybe that's why a handful of armed ships could beat the living crap out of them?

Anyway, the Americans are apparently involved in a scarcely veiled slave trade, where they indenture Chinese guys for three years under the pretext of sending them to the mines. Actually, they do send them to the mines, but not the ones the Chinese guys probably had in mind. The unbelievably stupid American commander also decides to bring over some whores for the toiling laborers. That, of course, is illegal, so he has to smuggle them out. Well, the feces hit the fan when the unbelievably stupid local thugs kidnap Aunt Yee, which of course sicks Fei-Hung, his disciples, and Foon on them. Needless to say, the bad guys lose. But why did Fei-Hung have to show up in a costume?

There are some pretty good action sequences here and although Jet Li is not as entertaining as Jackie Chan, he is excellent as the kung fu master. Restrained, precise, and looking smart, that's exactly what one would expect from such a deep character. Rosamund Kwan can stare a hole through my heart with her enormous eyes, and so much the better. She gets handled roughly at the end of the film, but without permanent damage. Yuen Biao's character was dull. He did not even get to show his superior martial skills. Pity. The rest of the cast is filler.

I must admit that Tsui Hark tempered his anti-Western "message" somewhat by killing off a Chinese-sprache Jesuit, who sacrifices himself to save Aunt Yee. Still, the caricatures of the foreigners were funny and I particularly enjoyed the scene where Buck Teeth So (Jacky Cheung) got the Americans to fire the canon at the British ship. Gold. In the end, however, even Fei-Hung seems to realize that if China is to survive, it has to adopt, adapt, learn, and improve. (It has not worked so far.)

The cinematography is pretty decent, and it shows that it took four guys to do it. The editing is pure Tsui Hark. There's a gazillion camera angles for each fraction of a second, so many that sometimes it is possible to become completely disoriented. The fights are very well done, but it would belittle the film to suggest that it is a mere action flick. It is a "deeper" action flick, an action flick with a soul, if you will. I personally found all the meaning in Miss Kwan's eyes.

For people who think that CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON suddenly sprang out of nowhere, OUATIC should provide a good example of what the crazy HK cinema people have been up to for the last two decades. The film, hugely successful in its homeland (I guess it did appeal to the masses), went on to spawn a long-suffering series of sequels, of which the second, helmed by Yuen Woo-Ping, is the best.

September 9, 2001.