Wong Fei-hung travels to the American West to oversee the opening of a branch of his Po Chi Lam medical clinic. While there he encounters restless Native Americans and joins a young gunslinger in protecting a Chinese community from a corrupt town mayor and his hired guns.
Hong Kong wire fu comes to America’s Old West in Once Upon a Time in China and America, the sixth feature in Tsui Hark’s epic martial arts series that continues to update the legend of Southern China’s number one folk hero, Wong Fei-hung. After skipping the last two episodes, Jet Li returns to the franchise that first made him an international superstar to take on Native Americans and gunslingers in an action-filled genre bender with the great Sammo Hung at the helm and a scene-stealing Xiong Xin-xin as Li’s fighting sidekick.
After rescuing a stranded gunslinger named Billy (Jeff Wolfe) in the wastes of the American Southwest, Wong Fei-hung and his fiancee Aunt Yee (Rosamund Kwan) are attacked by marauding Indians on their way to town where they intend to open a Po Chi Lam medical clinic. A subsequent stagecoach accident separates the pair and Fei-hung ends up in a Native American village with temporary amnesia. Aunt Yee arrives in town and begins a search with the help of Billy and Fei-hung’s loyal students, Seven (Xiong Xin-xin) and Pol (Chan Kwok-bong). They are eventually reunited just as the town’s mayor hatches a plot to have hired bandits rob the bank and put the blame on the local Chinese residents. With Fei-hung and his friends sentenced to hang, all appears lost until a twist of fate literally explodes onto the scene and offers the heroes a chance to fight back while clearing their names.
Rumor has it that OUATICAM came about after Sammo Hung lifted the idea of a kung fu Western from his pal Jackie Chan, who had long wanted to make such a movie. Chan finally did his Eastern Western in Hollywood with Shanghai Noon. Though both films bring a kung fu-fighting Chinese hero to the Old West, Sammo’s version is quite different. It’s chiefly a Hong Kong production that is mostly shot in Texas with a mixed Hong Kong and American cast and crew. It follows the series’ formula of intense wire fu action blended with a simple story of Chinese nationalism and virtue versus foreign oppression and general villainy. It’s interesting to note that Tsui Hark had intended this film to be a crossover for Hong Kong and American audiences. But while it was popular in Hong Kong, it failed to get real distribution in the US and therefore could be considered yet another in a string of setbacks for Tsui that began with his ill-fated team-up with action star Jean-Claude Van Damme in the same year.
OUATICAM is first and foremost a martial arts genre movie and in no is way made of the kind of crossover material its makers hoped for. That’s good and bad. On the plus side, the action is phenomenal. This could be considered Sammo Hung’s last great modern kung fu movie. He makes heavy use of wirework and frantic camera work, but it works well with indisputably fine choreography.
There are no outstanding individual fights to match Li versus Donnie Yen in OUATIC II. However, Li is in good form while his main villain is possibly the most distinctive of any he has faced onscreen. Wing Chun master Joe Sayah plays a wicked bandit leader who would stand out like a sore thumb in any real Western town, but fits right in this comic book-style Western as the ultimate evil gunslinger with death-dealing razor spurs, kicking ability and looks that would make him a potent front man for any death metal band. His final match with Li is wild and highly improbable, but certainly fun as Li kicks beer bottles into Sayah’s face and battles with him at the top of a windmill. Li also faces a number of “Native Americans,” one of whom is played by African-American stunt actor T.J. Storm (Silver Hawk). The fight work here is similar to Jackie Chan’s face off with Natives in Shanghai Noon, except that the fights are longer and there’s no humor involved. Li’s other notable fight is with costar Xiong Xin-xin who practically steals the movie from Li.
To give a basic idea of how good Xiong Xin-xin is, consider that he started out at Jet Li’s stunt double in Martial Arts of Shaolin (1986) and in the first OUATIC (1991). After delivering a memorable performance as a villain in OUATIC II, he became a series fixture as Fei-hung’s student Clubfoot. With few other acting roles to call his own, this is the character Xiong is best known for and his performance in OUATICAM is a standout by any standard. With head cocked to the side, a steely gaze and an impossibly limber body, Xiong repeatedly launches into a series of jaw-dropping maneuvers with a badass attitude Li could only dream of having. The single best moment appears in the film’s obligatory barroom brawl where Xiong wraps one leg around an opponent’s lowered neck and swings the other leg over the man’s body to drop a second attacker. Great camera angles help, but Xiong really sells the move. Another scene to watch for is where Xiong takes on a bandito played by American stunt actor Roberto Lopez (Trinity Goes East). Its a classic gunslinger versus kung fu master scenario and Xiong’s method of overcoming the bullet easily beats a similar showdown between Li and Sayah. The way in which the small Xiong overcomes the hulking Lopez in a tug of war contest is also a nice touch. For his voiceless part, Lopez looks like a throwback to the good old days of Spaghetti Westerns where a cigar-smoking bandito could toss lit dynamite with reckless abandon. Actually he does, but it would have been interesting to see his character developed beyond a late-entry thug.
Now it’s time for the bad and/or ugly. OUATICAM may be a good kung fu movie in the Old West, but it’s a terrible Western with kung fu. In other words, expect to see stereotypical depictions of Native Americans mostly portrayed by anyone but Native Americans. Most of the Caucasian actors are underdeveloped to the point of appearing as either faceless extras or thugs who all draw their guns on Chinese and Native Americans on sight. Jeff Wolfe is the only actor who gets any sizable role and it’s as your garden variety gunslinger who befriends the Chinese and willingly puts his life on the line for them for no reason. He’s supposed to be a man of principle, but his superficial cockiness puts him out of step with this morality. The character name of Billy also suggests that Tsui intended him to be a benevolent Billy the Kid, but this possibility is never confirmed or explored. In a perfect world, Tsui would have re-written the character to have a compelling reason to be in the movie and cast an older Hollywood star with more dramatic acting potential and no martial arts skills. For some reason, Sammo and Tsui had to have all of the lead gunslingers be martial artists too. That’s about as absurd as if Clint Eastwood shot a Western in China and had his hero get into a protracted gunfight with Colt-baring members of a kung fu school.
Once Upon a Time in China and America is best thought of as a further adventure of Wong Fei-hung in pulp fashion. In fact, a better title might have been Wong Fei-hung vs. the Savages or Wong Fei-hung Meets Billy the Kid. Sammo’s choreography is very good, but it mostly rehashes typical ’90s wirework and gives martial abilities to characters who shouldn’t have any. But it really doesn’t matter. Sammo and Tsui aren’t taking the matter too seriously and viewers shouldn’t either. This movie is all about putting Hong Kong-style wire fu action into a campy Western setting and they succeed. Yet it does make one yearn for a serious attempt at putting a kung fu fighter in an authentic Western setting, perhaps as Bruce Lee had originally envisioned when he conceived of the Kung Fu television series.
by Mark PollardRelated Topics:
Genre: Kung Fu
