The Master (1992)
Reviewed by: dandan on 2007-01-04
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...