Once Upon A Time In China (OUATIC) sees Jet Li in a career defining role as Wong Fei Hung - a real life legendary folk hero who lived during the mid 19th to early 20th century in the Fushan region of China. The name might also be familiar to Jackie Chan fans, who also portrayed Wong Fei Hung in the fantastic, though very different, Drunken Master movies.

For the people who are right now thinking.. "yeah, yeah, whatever".. all this talk of history should not deter you either! Those looking for a substantial dose of quality action and unparalleled fight choreography synonymous with Hong Kong cinema will not be disappointed. The action was, in part, choreographed by the great Yuen Wo Ping, now of course famous to western audiences for his work on the Matrix trilogy, as well as Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill.

Many Hong Kong movies suffer from inferior production values as a result of severe budget constraints in comparison to the lavish Hollywood school of film-making. However, OUATIC in China breaks this trend spectacularly. Director Tsui Hark (A Chinese Ghost Story, Zu Warriors) is reknowned for his affinity for big production values and this is seldom better demonstrated than in OUATIC. Hark makes good use of costumes, great locations and a fantastic Shaw Brothers set to create some beautiful looking shots, far superior to the majority of HK cinema. Although this movie contains pretty much no "special effects" in the sense that we might perceive it today, I still decided to give it a "Good" rating because of the clever techniques used to create some of the illusions in the fight sequences, mostly involving wire work. For example, there is one fight scene between Wong Fei Hong and Master Yim where a log is kept in the air through a series of kicks. Despite no access to any kind of CGI effects, the film-makers managed to create the illusion of this log being kicked back and forth. Although the physics of it are slightly suspect (!) the visual effect is impressive. The only slight flaw which I will point out in terms of production, is the fact that it wasn't shot in sync-sound (i.e. the film was shot without sound and the soundtrack was later recorded in studios). This was actually common for a lot of HK movies of the time, due to lack of money, equipment and resources, so its only a minor complaint.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA TRIVIA:

Jet Li would reprise the role of Wong Fei Hung in parts 2 & 3 of the OUATIC series, but following a dispute with Tsui Hark did not return for parts 4 & 5. Having settled their differences, Jet Li returned for the disappointing 6th part - Once Upon A Time in China & America, directed by none other than Sammo Hung. Jet Li also played Wong Fei Hung in the lesser known "Last Hero in China", which was an unofficial sequel (think of it like in terms of Sean Connery's "Never Say Never Again")