Legend of the Wolf (1997)
Reviewed by: maledictus on 2001-05-27
Summary: THE BLADE without talent involved...
Well, i'll have to admit i don't like Donnie Yen. Yeah, he is one hell of a fighter, and yeah, he was in some good movies (even though i'd nail that to his relation to Yuen Wo-Ping), but no, he can't act a bit, and after this, no, he can't direct.

The plot is unspeakably ridiculous and has no idea itslef what it wants to say. A young man is looking for Wolf (Donnie), finds him and because he's asleep, a friend of Wolf starts to tell him about Wolf's life. The problem here alone is, this Wolf may have been a great fighter and killed about 300 people, but where does that "Legend"-part come from? He never even really helped anybody, he just ran around and bashed up whoever looked odd. But okay, Donnie directs, Donnie gives absolutely everybody at least one line about how great Donnie is, so why not also a legend?

The flashbacks take the bigger part of the movie's time, and all the action takes place there...as the plot's already been summed up and isn't worth much talk anyways, i'll stick to the other things.

The cinematography is Wong Ka-Wai on acid, which at times results in nice effects and at other times in total desaster.

The acting is Donnie doing his thing, meaning having about three difeerent looks and running around a lot without shirt to show off his muscles. He can't really carry a movie alone, but he doesn't seem to have realised it yet. Carman Lee seems out of place, only the young man shows some talent.

Charcters? Nobody's character is developed in any satisfying way, the character of Wolf is supposed to be depthful but isn't. The villains are particulary bad, they don't even have names and their motivation is absurd.

Choreography. This is probably the main point for a Yen-movie and most people keep on praising how great they're here, but i can't agree. The mass battles have Yen take out 50 guys without anybody even hitting at him, they just stand around and wait for their turn to be cut up.

The duels are well-choreographed, grounded with minimal wirework and more violent than graceful, problem is, they also get boring to look at. Yuen Wo-Ping and Yuen Kwai know how to choreograph, their fights may take hours but you don't get tired of them, simply because the combatants are in movement, involve the things around them etc...well, Donnie just stands there and bashes at the other, is hit a few times, falls down, stands up, bashes on and so on and so on until somebody drops dead. Also, the camera is sometimes too close to the fighters, so you have no idea what's going on...and Donnie's imitation of Bruce Lee's facial expression and screams has a surrealist comedy touch to it. Oh, and to those who imagine this to be old school-like fights without any tricks, don't be fooled, there are more sped-up shots of fights here than in most MTV-clips!

In the end it's not the worst movie ever done, but i sure wouldn't give it more than 5/10, simply because everything but the fights have been showed dozen times better somewhere else and even the fights are not THAT good.