Reviewed by: Chungking_Cash Date: 06/12/2009 In 1990, a penniless Tsui Hark met with a pre-fame Jet Li in Los Angeles and together they imagined a reimagining of the Wong Fei-hung legend set in present day San Francisco. "The Master" might have worked had Tsui been after anything other than a paycheck. A lack of effort is visible on all major fronts: Tsui's direction is lazy, the production values are cheap, Yuen Wah and Brandy Yuen call the shots on cut-rate choreography, and the cast -- which includes Jerry Trimble, Billy Blanks and a half dozen other z grade Western actors -- is atrocious. Golden Harvest ultimately decided to sit on "The Master" until the studio reteamed with the duo for the "Once Upon a Time in China" series a largely successful revival of the Wong Fei-hung serials that returned the patriot to his cinematic roots and helped rejuvenate the martial arts genre in Hong Kong. Reviewer Score: 1

Reviewed by: STSH Date: 01/28/2007 Summary: Oh Jet ! Very uncomfortable mixture of unlikeable and unsympathetic characters and atrociously stupid story with outstanding (even stunning) set-piece fight scenes i.e. much the same setup as Dragons Forever, only worse ! The "love" scenes between Li and the lovely Crystal Kwok are atrocious. Imagine the storyline for Drunken Master II made even weaker and more stupid, made on a lower budget, with the action pieces nearly as good. In order to save yourself from massive cringe attacks, fast-forward past everything but the kung fu ! Reviewer Score: 3

Reviewed by: dandan Date: 01/04/2007 Summary: suprising... uncle tak (yuen wah) owns a small chinese medicine clinic in los angeles. one day, tak's former pupil, jerry (jerry trimble), turns up, demanding a fight; tak refuses, but gets involved when jerry starts smashing up the po chi lam clinic. tak is badly beaten and only makes it out alive as a passerby, anna (anne rickets) pulls him on to her motorbike and speeds off. tak stays with anna to recouperate, but their relationship is hampered by the language barrier. meanwhile, jet (jet li), tak's best student, arrives from china to find po chi lam boarded up. he breaks in and waits for tak, but the only person who comes to the clinic is may (crystal kwok), the estate agent who has been helping tak. the two set out to find tak and challenge jerry to a final showdown... now, this film has a terrible reputation, but i have to say that i found it quite enjoyable. tsui hark took jet li, yuen wah and a small team from hong kong to l.a. to make this film. apparently the crews from hong kong and l.a. didn't really hit it off and filming (as well as the film) ended up being a bit of a mess. tsui hark tries a bit too much; transposing the wong fei hung story to l.a., creating the framework of a 'karate kid'-esque sub-plot that is never expanded and looking at the clash between chinese and western culture. with tsui hark trying so much in, what appears to be, a non-too-comfortable working environment, there are plenty of flaws. the acting of the english speaking cast is poor (although not helped by some very poor post-sync audio recording) and the plot holes are gaping at every turn. still, jet still manages to do a reasonable job and yuen wah (who also takes the action director credit) is good in the role of the stubborn old master; he also manages to craft a few good, wire-free, action sequences that are very enjoyable. overall, i'd say that this film deserves some of it's bad reputation, but people seem to have gone over the top with their criticism: sure the narrative and (some) performances are very clunky, but there's enough there, especially with the fight sequences, to make a pretty entertaining 90 minutes. reasonable...

Reviewed by: MrBooth Date: 04/04/2005 Summary: One of the worst films ever made Mine came freakishly quickly from cd-wow too, despite having a HK postage stamp, I'm sure it was < 48 hours before it reached me. Anyway, here's me review... THE MASTER, filmed in 1989, was the first collaboration between director Tsui Hark and actor Jet Li. It was also, as it happens, the first Hong Kong film I ever bought. As if that were not enough, it's also one of the worst films ever made :) The film was shot in Los Angeles, with a small cast & crew from HK and a larger number of people that were found and cast in America. The communication problems on set are well known, but this isn't sufficient to explain why the film is so bad on basically every level - the story (which seems to have been inspired by KARATE KID), the acting (from everyone, but especially the latino sidekicks Jet acquires), the awful haircuts on the American martial artists but most of all... the dubbing. Much of the dialogue in the film is in English, but not shot with sync-sound. The dialogue was therefore dubbed in later, in many cases by different actors it would appear, and the voice acting is awful, and doesn't match the lip movements... and the English dialogue is dreadful to start with anyway. It really makes the film impossible to take seriously. It's not *all* bad though. Good things include a nice role for Yuen Wah, playing a good guy for once. He's also the action director for the film, and has some decent fight scenes. The other good thing is getting to see Jet do some 'real' fighting (wire-free) whilst he was still relatively in his prime. One might also comment that it's nice to see Crystal Kwok in her first role, but she admits herself that it wasn't a good role for her and she didn't do a terribly good job :p The haircut Tsui Hark gave her also makes her look pretty dumpy :p So that can't really be counted as a good point on reflection :) What else? Well, basically that's it for the film itself... but taking a broader view, one can assume that if it weren't for THE MASTER, and it's general failure as a film, Tsui Hark and Jet Li might never have got together to make ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA and been driven to make it so bloody good - and that would clearly have been BAD! In fact, THE MASTER was so bad that upon completion it was shelved as unreleasable - and when you consider this was a Hong Kong film, that's really something! It wasn't until 1992, after ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA had made Jet a huge star, that THE MASTER was actually released (under the cash-in Chinese title Wong Fei Hung 1992). Part of me wishes it had stayed on the shelves, as it's truly the kind of film that gives martial arts films a bad name - it might well have been the *last* hk film I bought, the experience was that disappointing - luckily I was able to take it back to the shop and swap it for another one, which I guess was better. I'm sure it's turned more than a few people off HK cinema forever though. Looking back on it now I've got a few hundred (thousand?) more under my belt, it's quite interesting from a 'historical interest' point of view. Knowing that the people involved are capable of so much better than this, it is quite fun to watch it and simply admire the catastrophic cock-up they all made on this occasion :) The reason for my revisiting of the film is, of course, the new release from Hong Kong Legends. It's a fine release - they've got a nice hi-def print from Fortune Star, included an English dub (almost redundant for this film) and the original Cantonese/English track in 5.1 or the original, unmolested mono. Subtitles are pretty well translated, and appear only when Cantonese is being spoken. The film really doesn't deserve any better, or even this much. Possibly more interesting than the film itself is the interviews on the disc though - one with Crystal Kwok, a rare one with Yuen Wah and a surprisingly interesting one with American stuntman John Kreng. There's also a commentary track from Bey Logan, which I'm sure is as interesting and informative as all his other commentary tracks I've never listened to ;) So, if you're looking for a decent martial arts film, perhaps somebody that's just discovered martial arts after seeing Jet's Hollywood stuff... for GOD'S SAKE don't get this one! If you're the kind of obsessive fan who has already bought most of Jet's films 3 times, then HKL have at least finally produced a version of THE MASTER that is somewhat worth owning :) Reviewer Score: 2

Reviewed by: j.crawford Date: 05/11/2004 After so many recent bad films from Tsui Hark, I thought maybe I'd check this one out on the DVD release. I managed to miss this back in '92 and figured it couldn't be as bad as so many people have written. It's a very corny retelling of the Wong Fei Hong story updated to a late '80's setting in urban America, complete with some very poorly written 'stereotypes' into the 'student' roles . It gave them [Hark & Li] a chance to shoot in the US which, I think, was big in both of their careers. Filmed in 1989 and unreleased until '92, I can understand the poor reception of this film considering the standards had been raised so high, set themselves with the first 2 OUATIC films. A decade or more later, it stands as an entertaining artifact of struggling artists at work. The DVD has very nice picture quality and a jacked up Hollywood soundtrack. Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: Graeme Noble Date: 03/26/2004 Summary: Bad Acting, Excellent Action If you like good HK style action, then the Master is a gem, excellent 7minute end fight on the roof of a skyscraper in LA, poor acting but top rate fighting from Jet! 8/10

Reviewed by: SteelwireMantis Date: 07/17/2003 Summary: Complete and utter SHIT!!!!!! This movie isn't just the worst Jet Li movie, but also the worst of maverick director Tsui Hark (I even think his American flops with Van Damme were more entertaining). A cheap rip-off of the WFH story (even though this was made before OATIC) - Yuen Wah is a kung fu master/chinese doctor with a clinic in America called Po Chi Lam (so cliche) who is betrayed by his American student. Jet Li plays Yuen Wah's Chinese student who arrives to visit him but realises the atrocities that have occured and vows for a final showdown with the bad guy. On the whole, the plot is unoriginal aswell as being extremely cheesy, terrible acting from the beggining and everyone (the worst of Jet Li) and I did not enjoy the fights, they were too slow and it seemed to show that Jet Li was the only one in the cast that knew how to fight. As a big fan of Jet Li, I only bought it on video and watched it once - never again, just buy it to fill up your Jet Li collection. What a load of crap. */***** Reviewer Score: 1

Reviewed by: Inner Strength Date: 04/20/2002 Summary: Poor This film is not very interesting, except some of the fights. But the story is far from original, and acting is even worst. Not recommended at all. Rating [1.5/5]

Reviewed by: Sydneyguy Date: 05/05/2001 Summary: Ummm.......... Many would say this is one of Jet Li's worst, and they probably would be right. Not much plot but the action is pretty good. It also seems a little short!! I heard that when making the movie, that Jet Li and the main bad guy HATED each other's guts so maybe the fight scenes may look a but TOO real!! 6/10

Reviewed by: ElectraWoman Date: 10/12/2000 Summary: 6/10-Not Jet Li's greatest film This updated spin-off of the Wong Fei Hung series is set in America, and is about a disciple, Li, searching for his master, played by Yuen Wah. However, a rival master and former student, jealous of Wah, decides to trash his medicine shop (guess what the name of the shop is) and gives Wah a good bashing in the process. Li, with the help of an ABC, Crystal Kwok, finds his master, then plots revenge. This is relatively watchable. The three Latino boys and the culture exchange they have with Li is strained comic relief, while all the other Caucasian characters are your typical nasty, seedy, racist bastards (actually, I don't know who is more racist here, maybe the Chinese producers of this film?). Yuen Wah is solid, as usual, while Li and Kwok both show they can't act :) Nice action sequences, but on the whole disappointing.

Reviewed by: hokazak Date: 12/09/1999 Perhaps the worst Jet Li movie? Jet Li is F.O.B. from China, in San Francisco. He is robbed by some Latino homeboys (sheer "comic relief" roles), beats them up and becomes their "sifu." Bad Guys mess around with him, beat up his uncle, etc.. There is a showdown.

Reviewed by: hkcinema Date: 12/08/1999 Uncle Tak is famous for using Chinese herbal medicines to curediseases. A martial arts expert, he also teaches the young how to defend themselves. One of his students, Johnny, dreams of monopolizing the teaching of kung fu throughout the United States. To accomplish this, he tries to kill Uncle Tak. Chuck, Uncle Tak's best student from Hong Kong, comes to Los Angeles to find his master. Chuck is willing to let Johnny have his way, and tries to take Uncle Tak back to Hong Kong. But Johnny and his men will not leave Chuck alone. Chuck, on his way back to Hong Kong, returns for the showdown. [Reviewed by Rim Films Catalog]

Reviewed by: hkcinema Date: 12/08/1999 Since the alternative title was WFH 92, might as well mention that Uncle Tak's bonesetting/herbal medicine clinic was called "Po Chi Lam" (hope I got that right), like WFH's." [Reviewed by Anonymous]