So so stylish and the action is magnificent, but I still prefer the first installments more human story and characters.

So so stylish and the action is magnificent, but I still prefer the first installments more human story and characters.

in my heart I will always be an American…but

Whenever Wong Fei-Hung is fighting and the music starts playing, somehow I get this real patriotic feeling, I don’t know how to explain it, it’s the beauty of cinema I guess, that a movie about the clash of east and west, tradition vs modern, set in 1890s china can make a person(me) born and raised in fucking Wisconsin feel a sense of Chinese patriotism, it’s the strangest thing.

in my heart I will always be an American…but

Whenever Wong Fei-Hung is fighting and the music starts playing, somehow I get this real patriotic feeling, I don’t know how to explain it, it’s the beauty of cinema I guess, that a movie about the clash of east and west, tradition vs modern, set in 1890s china can make a person(me) born and raised in fucking Wisconsin feel a sense of Chinese patriotism, it’s the strangest thing.

The fight for an identity for China in the midst of foreign occupation and colonial expanse reveals the other side of the coin - staunch and fanatical nationalism - in this sequel to Once Upon A Time In China. Wong Fei-hung returns, once again representing a sort of balance between progress and traditionalism, but now to focus more of his attention on forces of that traditionalism perverted in the name of maintaining power.

The action sequences are much more striking, visually, here, willing to go borderline cartoony in their explosive nature. The underlying drama of it all heightens it and it is clear that that dramatic influence has had an effect on how action sequences are shot, now giving ample amount of screentime to the faces of the combatants alongside the large, sweeping setpieces and the more close-up insert shots of minuscule movements that give a punch or a kick some extra oomph.

The fight for an identity for China in the midst of foreign occupation and colonial expanse reveals the other side of the coin - staunch and fanatical nationalism - in this sequel to Once Upon A Time In China. Wong Fei-hung returns, once again representing a sort of balance between progress and traditionalism, but now to focus more of his attention on forces of that traditionalism perverted in the name of maintaining power.

The action sequences are much more striking, visually, here, willing to go borderline cartoony in their explosive nature. The underlying drama of it all heightens it and it is clear that that dramatic influence has had an effect on how action sequences are shot, now giving ample amount of screentime to the faces of the combatants alongside the large, sweeping setpieces and the more close-up insert shots of minuscule movements that give a punch or a kick some extra oomph.