True Legend

Uneven kung fu flick based on the life of Beggar Su. The first 90 minutes are all good with plenty of cool fantasy martial arts, wirework galore, and a freaky poisonous villain. Then for some reason, the last 20 minutes features a ridiculous 5 on 1 battle royale against some Russians featuring poor CGI, breakdancing and pro wrestling moves. I appreciate Yuen Woo-Ping going for something different, but the whole ending was silly. Still, though, those first 90 minutes are plenty of fun.

An initially underwhelming storyline drags out into a self-contained trilogy of unnecessary and confusing sequels. Relief, in the form of beautiful Chinese mountain scenery, comes only briefly in the middle.

I love kung fu movies, but this one ends baddly trying some modern take...

A great story and an amazing performance from Vincent Zhao. Some bad CGI and the middle drags but over all I enjoyed this Wire-Fu extravaganza.

A pretty fun film but goes crazy and silly towards the end. If that sounds like a good thing in your book, give it a go.

Superb fighting scenes.

Crap. A clumsy story, bad direction, bad pacing, bad acting and waaay too much CGI/wire-fu condemn this film to the realm of the forgotten celluloid. Not recommended.

- 11/26/11

This is the first wuxia since CROUCHING TIGER that doesn't feel like it's aping that film, but really doing its own thing and finding its own voice. The "split" in the storyline didn't bother me at all -- people's lives are often divided into parts. Woo-ping has come a long was as a director since TAI CHI MASTER, and this one has striking visuals, a compelling (is familiar) basic plot and good acting from the action stars. I had my doubts during the opening scene, but the movie won me over.

It has some good fights but they don't really make up for how absolutely horrid the plot and writing are. Honestly if this film didn't have drunken style I would have rated it even lower.

"Opting for craziness over coherence, True Legend at least expends its energy in the right place." - Jesse Cataldo

starts out as a quintessential kung fu revenge flick..and is BADASS at that... takes an unexpected turn and, while remaining in old school kung fu plot territory, it becomes a completely different film and we lose all of the character development and most of the meaning of what went before this turning point. might have worked better as two films. the action was perfect and matched the tribute to 70s kung fu wonderfully.

Don't come for the story -- come for Master Woo Ping's first film in a decade. Not a fan of the "drunken" form (although it worked smashingly in the action comedy "Drunken Master"), so when it's taken "seriously" it really doesn't work. The choreography is magnificent (as everyone should expect), but it just doesn't reach the sublime heights of his other works.