MovieChat Forums > Su Qi-er (2010) Discussion > Horrible third act

Horrible third act

posted 14 years ago by RubberLegs
14 replies | jump to latest

Its great to see Woo Ping behind the camera again the first half of the movie is awesome. Great fights and a really good cast. The pacing in the last section on the movie is awful though. Its almost like two movies put together and makes me wonder how much control Woo Ping had over the movie since Focus produced it.

Its the same group of people that produced Fearless and pulled the same type of ending fights against a bunch of foreigners. Now it wasn't that bad in Fearless since the guys that were cast actually knew how to fight.
Its becoming old seeing this because it happens in Fearless, Yip Man 2, The Protector and now True Legend. It really pulls the final fights down too since the main thing was this a retelling of Beggar Su character that has been used in bunch of older kung fu movies. Most are familiar with the original Drunken Master that Sam Seed plays the role as the beggar who is Jackie Chan teacher.

Its just ends badly with a bunch of wrestlers and just doesn't go with the flow the movie. I guess I expecting more and seeing how well the first half of the movie is. Like I said its getting old with all the recent movies using big goofy foreigners. Now if they actually knew how to fight that would be different, they just need to ditch the wrestling style guys they cast.

[–] darkmorph 14 years ago

It's never old seeing foreigners getting their ass handed to them like it's never old seeing the vice versa in Western films. It's only weird in this movie because it feels so disjointed. It's like they took two different genre of movies and splice them together. Reminds me of some art films that do that.

[–] Tomthespacetraveler 11 years ago

It's never old seeing foreigners getting their ass handed to them like it's never old seeing the vice versa in Western films.

So in Western films, the asses get their foreigners handed to them?

Together we shall live forever.

[–] benmasta 9 years ago

lol i dunno any recent western movies that always seem to paint foreigners in as bad a light as badly as chinese movies paint white people in theirs lol

its just common practice now in chinese movies to have the faceless/charaterless evil bad guys be gigantic white people because as we all know, big white people are slow, clumsy, and completely dumbfounded when up against magically powerful martial artists.

[–] mamporrero 14 years ago

The movie opens with a team a wire-fu fighters assaulting a CGI orc fortress. People fly through the air, break boulders with their bare hands and have crazy powers like changing colors and shooting poison through their fingertips. The end is a group of WWE fighters pummeling a drunkard for a hundred silver coins prize.

This couldn't feel more disjointed if they had stitched together scenes from "12 Angry Men" and "Stagecoach" for the final 30 minutes.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] Blam_Mel 14 years ago

I imagine because the time the movie took place the 1800's was close to the time where chinese myth and reality were becoming one, and he was a hero of that period. So his Shaw brothers type escapade against his brother was one thing but when it came to his actual documented escapades they decided to do it in different manner... It was odd, but I didn't hate it. And the last fight fight sequence got plenty of ewws and awws ugghs at the north american premiere tonight. It went over pretty well with a packed theatre

[–] bigcced 14 years ago

"and it was so rushed."
The movie was approx 1 hour and 55 mins.they probably had to rush slightly,cash was probably running out.

[–] Sekira66 13 years ago

from what i have gathered - the drunk dude in the wine joint is more powerful that th Wushu God.

[–] DM-DAAN 13 years ago

"So his Shaw brothers type escapade against his brother was one thing but when it came to his actual documented escapades they decided to do it in different manner... It was odd, but I didn't hate it."

^^ This. It's indeed far from perfect, but somehow it didn't ruin it for me. One can claim that the east vs. west finale trend of current chinese movies has to do with the Chinese government sponsoring/embracing a lot of these movies as a way to create a picture of a single, communal Chinese history, set against that of The West. Or it could be that it only reflects on a period in China's history where the chinese were being bullied by basically the modern world (Germany, Japan, Britain, etc.).

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] strawberrydioxide 13 years ago

I've got to admit, after he'd defeated his mortal enemy. I noticed there was still a considerable amount of the movie left to go. It reminded me of what I learned in a class I took about Chinese film. Chinese films usually have the kind of structure to it where each act is like a self-contained story. I guess you could say they were like serials, but without the cliffhanger endings. This film embodied that idea pretty perfectly. I don't exactly love the film, but I didn't hate it either. My feelings about it are decidedly mixed. I am just going to say that the third act was worth seeing that drunken fight in the bar with Jay Chou. That scene was just sublime.

[–] noahtenzin 13 years ago

http://www.shockya.com/news/2011/05/15/true-legend-movie-review/

^ Yeah, third act gets dinged in this review, too! Big time...

[–] ninjaphil 13 years ago

Noahtenzin did you write this review? You've posted it six times on different threads already??

Adrian: Why do you wanna fight?
Rocky: Because I can't sing or dance.

[–] Serenity3000 9 years ago

I agree. Great movie until the third act. They should have ended it when Yuan Lie was killed by Su. And then found his wife alive instead of dead...happy ending.