Xanda is producer Tsui Hark’s attempt to bring the sport of Sanda or San Shou to the big screen. It’s a relatively new sport started in China as a way for Wushu practitioners to engage in full contact matches. Thus, rather than the acrobatic and traditional forms as practiced by actors Jet Li and Wu Jing, San Shou experts employ a less-flowery mix of kickboxing, boxing, and throws. It’s an intense martial art that possesses practical self defense value, but competitors are limited by boxing gloves and rules prohibiting grappling and other ground techniques.

The story in Xanda is routine as it pretty much covers the same ground as Rocky, released twenty-seven years prior. One difference is that the lead stars are real San Shou fighters rather than former porn stars (yes, I’m talking about Sylvester Stallone). Sang Wei-lin plays Qiang, a country boy whose overconfidence in his traditional kung fu training literally gets smacked down in a chance encounter with Xanda champion Wei (Teng Jun). After his friend is injured in the ensuing scrap at a restaurant, Qiang decides to get into Xanda for the money to pay the medical bill. Lung (Zhao Zi-long), another friend, talks his father, Coach Tieh (Zhang Hong-jun), into letting Qiang join their club to train. Qiang’s first real match is a disaster and he soon quits to find comfort in booze. But with the help of his new girlfriend (Ni Jing-yang), Qiang bounces back and soon finds himself training again after Lung suffers a crippling defeat at the hands of Wei.

Nobody should be expecting much from the story. After Rocky, there are virtually no good ring fighting films. Rocky sequels – same formula followed by steady decline. Bloodsport – good action, bad story. Bloodfist – low budget flick from the screenwriter of Cutthroat Island, ’nuff said. Ali – casting Will Smith as the great Muhammad Ali is only the first of many mistakes this film makes. Star Runner – dismal direction and writing kills this one. You get the point, although a glance back will reveal a couple of hits like Duel of Fists and Raging Bull.

Comparisons aside, Xanda is not a bad film. The romantic and dramatic angst surrounding Qiang’s lost love for a wheel-chair bound girl from his hometown is clichéd, but only until we’re shown one of their arguments that basically reinforces the fact that Qiang is a bit of a jerk. It seems unrealistic that his city girlfriend would continue to pursue him despite his sullen behavior and single-minded devotion to his chosen sport. Even their first intimate moment is a bit much as she puckers up to his freshly swollen and bloody face following his first royal beating in the ring. Both his attitude and ring-fighting skills are supposed to improve during the course of the film, but the transition gets lost amid a quick montage of training sequences and clowning about with his guitar-playing girl. If any good martial arts competition film should teach us anything, it’s that training to be a winner takes massive effort. At the very least, we should have to endure a few fights along the way. But all we get here are two ring fights with Qiang, his initial defeat and his climatic match with Wei.

Although the film itself is shot with a refreshing independent look to capture city and country scenes, Tsui Hark opts to use stylized camera work for the fights and this is a mistake. Quick cuts, shaky cam footage and tons of slow motion turn the action into gratuitous spitting, lurching, and rumbling sessions that are hammered over the viewer’s head like anvils. Tsui Hark has never been known for subtlety in filmmaking and while it seems like he tries to make an effort here, it fails. Filmmakers need to learn to let the choreography have its own voice. Ching Siu-tung is one of the few action directors who can get away with heavy editing because it is so much a part of his style, but then it would have been wrong for this film too.

The acting performances from mostly amateurs are good, but not great. All three of the action leads, Sang Wei-lin, Zhao Zi-long, and Teng Jun show potential as martial arts stars. They’re all impressive fighters, despite the editing. It’s also nice to be viewing a clean slate, where one has no preconceived ideas of how an actor might approach a role. Since everyone is unknown, it’s easier to just sit back and focus on the events as they unfold.

Xanda is not far from being the kind of breakthrough film that Tsui envisioned where new stars and action emerge. He gets kudos for pushing Chinese martial arts cinema away from the oversaturated wuxia genre and back into semi-reality. By working with a mainland cast and crew, he has succeeded better than any of the bubblegum tripe from Hong Kong in the last several years like Anna in Kung Fu Land. Yet, he doesn’t go far enough and this is where the film falters. Nevertheless, it’s still a reasonably entertaining flick for anyone who appreciates more drama with their reality-based action.

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