Jet Li's Fearless [WS] [Unrated/Theatrical] [DVD] [2006]

Very good Li movie. Good action. Yours truly Mike Ornelas.

Better than average Jet Li opus from this period. Not without faults it is well worth a watch.

The movie Fearless has such a profound lesson to learn within the plot of the movie that I can't help but suggest it to anyone and everyone. The standard spoken language is Mandarin/Cantonese (I don't know how to speak or recognize either one) but there is English dubbing for the entire movie.

Not everyone likes Jet Li or every one of his movies. This movie, however, is a really great dramatic adaptation of the start of the Jingwu school in the context of a China where over 1/3rd of the male population is addicted to opium. The school was started to help men beat their addiction and to physically, mentally and morally strengthen a population weakened by opium addiction, opium trade and colonial interferance by Japan and some western colonial and empire powers. Although the details in this dramatization are not wholly accurate, the overall story, with dramatic license, represents the essence of what happened. The death of Huo Yuanjia is not necessarily as attributable to poisioning as the movie implies and a fair controversy exists as to the exact cause. However, the objective that Japan and the western powers had in issuing the challenge to Huo is a reasonable representation of history at that time. Jet Li's other movie about this school, Fist of Legend, an homage to Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury (mistakenly aka Chinese Connection in the US), is a dramatization of a fictional student's reacting to Huo's death. Like this movie, it too takes a fair amount of dramatic license, but is a reasonable representation of history at that time. Fearless helps build a fuller context for Fist of Legend. Beware of getting one with a bad disc 1. Universal created thousands of copies that, although properly labeled, had the content of disc 2. The really sad part of this is that the director's cut is supposed to be on disc 1 so you get only the theatrical and unrated versions. Universal will replace the bad disc 1, but only after some e-mail and snail mail interactions. The release had been fixed already, but thousands with the bad disc 1 seem to still exist in retail distribution centers and stores as of this review. I had to go through more than 15 DVDs at 3 stores to finally find a good one. The one I finally found was shrink wrapped instead of cellophane wrapped and did not offer the free Mummy Movie Ticket on the outside but did have the Directors Cut sticker on the shrink wrap. This may help finding one without a bad disc 1. Every one I opened that was cellophane wrapped, had a certificate for the free Mummy movie inside and/or had the free Mummy movie ticket sticker on the outside wrapper had a bad disc 1. The director's cut is amazing and it's sad that it was not released in the US theatrically and with dubbing. It's too bad the editors for the US market feel they have to cut and/or change so much from wuxia movies like this one. The only down side is that you'll have to listen to it in Mandarin Chinese and read the sub titles, but that's not a big deal considering it's a foreign film in the first place. Highly recommended once you get the director's cut.

Rare dvd you have to buy it, if you find it. Two versions one movie

Action Packed with blu ray quaity! I am so pleased to own this movie on BLU RAY!

Highly recommend this Chinese import classic from jet li Tells a great story

I don't know about the other guy but I just pruchased this movie today (Aug. 31st 2008) and it came with all three versions. The directors cut the theatrical and the unrated version. This movie has great martial arts action and recommend this movie to any true Martial art fan. I found out through universal on an e-mail.. thats why you haven't seen this movie on the shelves anymore until last week... they replaced the old disc 1 which was the same as disc to and added the director's cut.