Fearless (2006 film)

Fearless, also known as Huo Yuanjia (霍元甲) in Chinese, as Spirit in Japan and as Jet Li's Fearless in the United Kingdom and in the United States, is a 2006 Hong Kong-Chinese martial arts film directed by Ronny Yu and starring Jet Li. It is loosely based on the life of Huo Yuanjia, a Chinese martial artist who challenged foreign fighters in highly publicized events, restoring pride and nationalism to China at a time when Western imperialism and Japanese manipulation were eroding the country in the final years of the Qing dynasty before the birth of the Republic of China. Li stated that the film was his last wushu martial arts film, a point also made in the film's television promotions and other publicity, although he would do action films with martial arts in them and did not rule out historical epics with martial arts.
Fearless was released on 26 January 2006 in Hong Kong, on 23 June 2006 in the United Kingdom, and on 22 September 2006 in the United States. The film received generally positive reviews from critics. At the 13th Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards, it won the Film of Merit.
The film begins on September 14, 1910, with Huo Yuanjia defeating three foreign fighters in a series of matches: British boxer Peter Smith, Belgian lancer Colonel Han Herzon, and Spanish fencer Anthony Garcia. A fourth match is about to begin, when Huo remembers his father Huo Endi teaching martial arts to a group of students.
The story then continues as an extended flashback. As a child, Huo Yuanjia wants to learn how to fight, but his father is concerned about his asthma. After practicing calligraphy with his childhood friend, Nong Jinsun, Yuanjia watches his father fight a match with Zhao Zhijiang, who wins dishonorably by attacking after Huo Endi had already won and held back the fatal blow. After the match, Yuanjia is teased by Zhao's young son, Zhao Jian. The two fight, and Yuanjia loses. Humiliated by his father and his own defeat, Yuanjia vows to become a great martial artist and regain the Huo family's honor. His mother tells him that the purpose of martial arts is self-improvement and to help others, not to seek glory or vengeance. Huo nonetheless continues to practice martial arts without his father's knowledge.
As a young man, and after his father passed away, Huo Yuanjia becomes a famous martial artist and the father of a young girl. His elderly mother says that Huo has spoiled his daughter since his wife passed away. Huo fights and wins numerous matches, including a match on an elevated platform with the now adult Zhao Jian. Huo is so confident of victory that in one match, he invites all of his opponents to fight him at once. He defeats them all, and many begin calling him the "number one martial artist in Tianjin." At the height of his fame, Huo becomes short-tempered, arrogant, reckless, and ruthless towards his opponents, unlike his father, who advocated mercy.
Huo gains many students, accepting anyone who wants to learn how to fight. Huo squanders his family's wealth on partying and drinking with these students. Meanwhile, his childhood friend Nong Jinsun, has become a prosperous restaurant owner, and he warns Huo to look at the character of a man before accepting him as a student. Nong ignores the mounting bills that Huo and his students and friends have amassed at his restaurant.
When a rival martial arts master named Qin Lei attacks one of his students, Huo seeks revenge by challenging Qin to a fight. He finds Qin celebrating his birthday with his mistress and students at Nong Jingsun's restaurant. Qin offers to accept Huo's challenge on a different day, and Nong Jinsun urges him to accept. However, Huo refuses, ending his friendship with Nong, and demanding that everyone leave. Huo Yuanjia and Qin Lei then engage in a deadly swordfight, which Huo wins, and Qin is killed. After the fight, Qin's godson goes to Huo Yuanjia's home to seeks revenge, where he murders Huo's mother and daughter.
Huo then goes to Qin Lei's house to seek revenge from his godson. Huo enters the house in a screaming frenzy and quickly strikes the godson's neck with a war sword, leaving the godson bleeding out. With no one left to seek vengeance on, except Qin's wife and daughter, Huo drops his sword and staggers from the house in horror. Outside, he is met by his students, one of whom confesses that he had insulted Qin Lei's mistress, which is why Qin Lei attacked him. Wracked with guilt, Huo flees from Tianjin and wanders aimlessly for many months. He nearly drowns after falling in a river, but is saved by Granny Sun and her blind granddaughter, Yueci. They bring him back to their village, where they nurse him back to health. Huo lives as a farmer in Yueci's village for many years, where he learns their culture and value of mercy and compassion for others.
In 1907, Huo Yuanjia returns to Tianjin, only to find the city transformed by foreign influence. Foreign soldiers march down the streets, children beg for food from rich foreigners, while foreign missionaries evangelize to the Chinese people. Huo returns to his own home, only to find the family's servant, Laifu, as the last person living there. All of the other servants had been let go, and nearly all of the furniture had been taken away to pay for Huo's debts. Even the house would have been sold if Nong Jinsun had not donated a large sum of money to keep the house under Huo's ownership.
Huo burns the awards that he had gained as a martial arts champion. Huo and Laifu then visit the tomb of his parents and daughter, where he tells his daughter that he was not a good father, and his mother not to worry, for he now understands what she was trying to teach him. He tells his father that only now does he understand why his father held back the fatal blow and shows mercy to his opponents. He says his father is the true "number one martial artist in Tianjin." Huo returns to the home of Qin Lei, seeking forgiveness for causing his death. He also finds two of his old students, who never learned how to do anything other than fight, and can now only earn money as bouncers. Meanwhile, an American wrestler named Hercules O'Brien has won several matches against Chinese fighters, declaring all Chinese to be "sick men of Asia."
In 1909, Huo decides to challenge O'Brien and defend the dignity of the Chinese people. After a tense reunion with Nong Jinsun, Huo eventually reconciles with his old friend, and he borrows the money needed to arrange a match with O'Brien. Before the fight begins, Huo declares that he and O'Brien should fight with honor and civility, but the announcer deliberately mistranslates Huo's words and says in English that "he wants to kick your butt." Though O'Brien is much taller and stronger, Huo is winning the fight and the support of the audience. Huo kicks O'Brien, but then saves him from falling and dying on loose nails on the side of the ring. O'Brien says thank you in Chinese, accepts defeat, and holds up Huo's hand as the winner.
With his newfound fame, Huo decides to build a new school, the Chin Woo Athletic Association in Shanghai. Nong Jingsun helps him write a book describing his philosophy for self-improvement and character-building through the practice of martial arts. Nong sells his restaurant to finance his friend's school. However, members of the foreign chamber of commerce fear that Huo's victories will fan anti-foreign sentiment among the Chinese people, and a Japanese member of the chamber, Mita, proposes a match between Huo and four foreign fighters. Mita tells the others that he has a plan that will guarantee Huo's defeat. Huo accepts the challenge, even though he will fight four matches in a row. Before the match, Huo accepts a visit from a Japanese fighter named Anno Tanaka. They discuss the philosophy of different fighting styles over tea and develop a mutual respect for each another.
The film then returns to the present, with the fourth match against a foreign fighter about to begin. It is revealed that Tanaka is the fourth fighter, and he tells Huo that the fight is unfair, and that they should reschedule the match for another day. Huo politely expresses his gratitude, but says they should continue the match since they are already there. In the first round, they fight with their weapons of choice, with Huo using a sanjiegun, and Tanaka using a katana. During the fight, they accidentally exchange weapons, with Huo able to handle the katana proficiently. Tanaka can defend himself with the sanjiegun, but he fumbles while attacking. Huo offers to exchange weapons with Tanaka, and the first round ends in a draw.
Before the next round, Huo unknowingly drinks a cup of tea poisoned by a server working for Mita. The second round is an unarmed fight, but Huo has difficulty breathing and begins to lose his strength. He collapses and starts coughing blood from arsenic poisoning. Tanaka and Huo's supporters demand that the match be halted and postponed, but Huo wishes to continue, as he is going to die anyway. Huo, overwhelmed by Tanaka, still manages to deliver a strike to Tanaka's chest, the same strike he used to kill Qin Lei, but holds back before the fatal blow. Huo smiles then collapses.
Tanaka, knowing that he could have died had Huo used more force, holds up Huo's hand and declares him the winner. He bows respectfully and leaves. Mita angrily confronts Tanaka and demands to know why he forfeited the match. Tanaka explains that Huo had won the match fairly, to which Mita says he has no right to make that judgement and calls Tanaka a disgrace to the Japanese nation. Tanaka says he is disgusted with Mita and walks away.
In the epilogue, Yueci sees the spirit of Huo practicing martial arts on a field. He turns to her and smiles.
The film was originally approximately 140 minutes long, but to fit market demand, it was cut to 105 minutes, and scenes by Michelle Yeoh and a fight between Jet Li and a Thai boxer, portrayed by Somluck Kamsing, were removed. A special release of the film in Thailand in March 2006 reinserted the scenes with Somluck (but not Michelle Yeoh), making its new running time approximately 110 minutes. In January 2007, Ronny Yu's original 140-minute director's cut was given an official DVD release in Hong Kong, featuring the full Michelle Yeoh subplot as well as the fight with Somluck Kamsing.
Within the Somluck Kamsing scene, there are two different endings. In the director's cut, the fight ends after Huo Yuanjia stops the Thai boxer from falling head first. In an alternate scene, the Thai boxer continues to fight after this and Huo appears to kill him with the exterminating blow, only to see that he had resisted, in which the boxer realises this and ends the fight.
Universal released the full 140-minute director's cut on DVD in North America in July 2008. The released DVD, however, contained 2 discs and has been reported to errantly contain both the existing US theatrical version and the existing unrated version and not the actual director's cut on either of the discs. However, many people were able to get replacement copies that had the director's cut after sending a complaint on their website.
In December 2008, Universal released the Blu-ray version of the film, which contains the three versions (Theatrical, Unrated, and Director's Cut) in a single disc.
There are many differences between the theatrical and director's cut.
The film holds a rating of 74% on Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus being, "Fearless is a brilliantly choreographed, beautifully filmed endcap to Li's quarter-decade of epic martial arts glory." Empire gave two stars out of five with a verdict stating, "Despite impressive, CG-light action sequences and an absorbing story which certainly stands another re-telling, director Ronny Yu barely elevates this above the level of a direct-to-video fightfest. Hero or Crouching Tiger it ain't."
Fearless opened in Hong Kong on 26 January 2006 during the Chinese New Year holidays. The film played to blockbuster business, eventually grossed an exceptional HK$30,201,600 by the end of its run on 8 March 2006, making it the highest-grossing domestic film of the territory of 2006.
On 22 September 2006, Fearless was released in 1,806 North American cinemas under the title Jet Li's Fearless. In its opening weekend, it placed 2nd at the box office to the sequel to Jackass, grossing US$10,590,244 (US$5,863 per screen). It was Jet Li's seventh film in a row to open to over US$10 million. The film went on to gross US$24,633,730 by the end of its North American run—making it the sixth highest-grossing non-English language foreign film in the United States to date—and its total worldwide gross US$68,072,848.
The descendants of Huo Yuanjia were so upset by how their ancestor was portrayed in Fearless, as well as by the historical inaccuracies in the film, that they launched a lawsuit against Jet Li and the film's producers and distributors in March 2006. Huo Shoujin, an 81-year-old grandson of Huo Yuanjia, stated he was unhappy that the movie showed Huo Yuanjia causing "trouble", which led to the deaths of his mother and daughter. Huo Shoujin also denounced the filmmakers for depicting his grandfather as a violent fighter. In December 2006, a court in Beijing dismissed the case, saying Fearless was an exaggerated and fictitious portrait of Huo Yuanjia but it "contained no defamatory or libelous depictions".
The film's soundtrack was composed by Shigeru Umebayashi.
The Taiwanese singer Jay Chou wrote and sang the ending theme song of the same name. In the song, Chou sings in a falsetto voice for a few segments.