Once Upon a Time in China III

Name: Once Upon a Time in China III

Genre: Action/Adventure/Drama/History

Cast: Jet Li, Rosamund Kwan, Max Mok, Tsui Hark (Director)

Synopsis: During the last years of regime of the Qing Dynasty, China was experiencing turmoil as foreign powers were increasing their influence significantly. To restore their pride and their might of their martial arts in front of foreign powers, empress Dowager Cixi order and governor Li decided to organize a Lion Dance competition, where all the martial art schools around the country will participate for the title of “Lion Dance King”. Wong Fei Hing with Aunt Yee and his student Leung Foon arrived in Beijing to visit his father’s residence in Canton. When they got off the train station, they meet a Russian diplomat called Tomanovsky who knows Aunt Yee as they both had studied in Britain. He tried to kiss Aunt Yee’s hand but seeing this Wong Fei Hong gets annoyed and tells Tomanovsky that this western culture is considered bad in Chinese culture. When Wong Fei Hong reaches the association’s centre to meet his father, he came to know that his father was attacked by a wealthy businessman called Chiu Tin Bak and his men; one of those was Thunderfoot (clubfoot) but his father sustains minor injuries but very happy to see his son and Aunt Yee.

Before the actual competition took place, local martial arts club organized a competition of their own just to show their might to the others. Wong Fei Hong didn’t participate in that but was watching the competition from a roof of a building. Meanwhile Foon and some students of Wong Fei Hong though of participating in the competition and accidently meet Thunderfoot which they also encountered previously when they were taking rickshaws. Foon and Thunderfoot had a fight but Foon manages to escape and during that Thunderfoot got hurt very badly during the rampage of the horses. Wong Fei Hong after seeing that the martial clubs are unnecessarily beating each other, jumps into the competition and tries to stop them and asks if they want to show their might why not try him. One of them tried but later on they said they have understood Master Wong’s point. Chiu Tin bak throws a party for winning the local lion dance competition. When injured Thunderfoot goes to the party, Chui’s men make fun of him and humiliate him. Also Chui Tin Bak abandons him. Being abandoned and dejected Thunderfoot goes to Wong’s house and challenges him. Wong Fei Hong sees the injured condition of Thunderfoot asked him that first let him treat after that he can fight with me. Thunderfoot seeing the kindness of Wong agrees to him and later starts to live with them. Aunt Yee’s camera was thrown in Local Lion dance competition and later it was retrieved by Wong. She sees the camera reel and uncovers that Governor Li’s life is in danger and will be killed during the Lion Dance Competition and Tomanovsky is one of the conspirators. Learning that truth, Wong Fei hong decided to take part in the competition with Foon and Thunderfoot as his assistance. As the competition start, all the participating men fights with each other to try to reach at the top scaffolding to have the Gold plate, so that they can be pronounced as winners of the competition. Tomanovsky sees that Yee is recording the competition through the camera and fearing that she will also record the assassination goes for her to take the camera away. Yee seeing him running towards him also runs from there. Wong Fei Hong, on other side, over come all the odds against him and Thunderfoot wins the competition. Someone from the Russian camp fires at governor Li during that moment but luckily bullet didn’t hit him and he was alive.  Hearing the bullet voice Tomanovsky went want with the pistol in hand. Seeing pistol in hand all the Governor Li’s men point guns towards him but someone from the Russian Camp kills Tomanvsky and accuses him of Japanese spy. Wong Fei Hong refuses the gold medal and being accepted him as winner and told governor Li that China has today lost men for just no reason. Real victory will only be there when every Chinese will play its role with wisdom for restoring national pride. He tossed the gold medal in front of governor Li and walked away.

Review: Another great sequel made by Tsui Hark with absolutely brilliance. Another great performance given by Jet Li. Acting of Rosamund and Max Mok were as usual, good. But this time, the martial arts sequences in the movie were even better than the previous two prequels. But the performance of Chin Chui wasn’t much impressive. Story of the movie was somewhat a predictable. Leaving some negatives apart, movie is full of action, some brilliant direction and some great martial arts sequences. A must watch for everyone and specially for those who are followers of Jet Li or who are following Once upon a time in China film series.

Stars given: 4 out of 5.