The Cinematheque

“Tsui [works] his double-edged magic as a gifted crowd-pleaser with a higher purpose, on an epic scale.”

David Chute, Film Comment

Tsui Hark’s mix of politics and action theatrics reached new levels of prestige in Once Upon a Time in China, in which anti-imperialist motivation and national pageantry are embodied in the glorious kung fu of Wong Fei-hung, a career-defining role for star Jet Li. In the waning years of the Qing dynasty, Westernization is taking what it can find in Foshan: embassies, treaty-makers, immigration marketers, and missionaries are all setting up their industries inside China’s borders. For Wong, Foon (Yuen Biao), and Thirteenth Aunt (Rosamund Kwan), this maze of intrigue is solvable through ingenuity and art that can adapt without assimilating. Delaying any full combat until a half-hour into the film, Tsui creates audacious limitations for Li to play within: matches in which Wong tries not to fight, to only disarm or to dodge gunfire and flaming arrows. (A fair fight is a boring one!) Laws of physics are bent, but not entirely defied, in the steady frame of Tsui’s camera direction.

In Cantonese, Mandarin, English, and French with English subtitles

“Equal parts anti-imperialist tract, gleeful exploration of melodramatic violence, comic folk tale, and wistful quest for spiritual unity.”

Howard Hampton, Film Comment