Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen is a 2010 Hong Kong martial arts film directed and produced by Andrew Lau, and starring Donnie Yen as Chen Zhen, a role made famous by Bruce Lee in the 1972 film Fist of Fury. The film is a sequel to the 1994 film Fist of Legend, which starred Jet Li as Chen Zhen. Principal photography for Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen began in November 2009 and ended in early February 2010; shooting took place in Shanghai, China. The film was shown out of competition during the opening night of the 67th Venice International Film Festival,[2] and 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.[3] The film was released in Chinese theatres on 21 September 2010 and two days later in Hong Kong on 23 September 2010.
TRAILER[]
PLOT[]
Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen is set in the period before the Second Sino-Japanese War. Chen joins a group of Chinese men to help the Allies fight the Germans in France during World War I. He returns to China after the war, taking on the identity of Qi Tianyuan, a fellow comrade who was killed in action.
Back in Shanghai, Chen joins an underground resistance movement to stop the Empire of Japan from invading China. He befriends Liu Yutian, the owner of a nightclub frequented by foreign dignitaries. He becomes attracted to Kiki, a nightclub singer who is actually a Japanese undercover agent. One night, Chen discovers that the Japanese are planning to assassinate General Zeng, the son of a northern warlord, and push the blame to General Zhuo, a rival warlord. Zeng's death will spark off a civil war between the two warlords and aid the subsequent Japanese invasion. Chen disguises himself as a masked superhero and defeats the assassins and saves Zeng.
With the operation failed, Tokyo sends a name list of anti-Japanese activists to Colonel Chikaraishi Takeshi, the leader of the Japanese secret agency in Shanghai, ordering him to kill the people on the list. Chikaraishi leaks out the list, causing panic among the populace, and pays a visit to the nightclub. Chikaraishi is aware of Chen's true identity and he challenges Chen to save the people on the list. Chen and Chikaraishi engage in a race of time to save and assassinate the activists respectively. Eventually, Chikaraishi's younger brother leads a team of killers to murder the editor of the Shanghai Times. Chen fails to save him on time and sees his friend die before him, after which he takes vengeance on the murderers.
In the meantime, Chen figures out that Kiki is a spy and warns her to leave. Chikaraishi starts to distrust Kiki and he forces her to kill General Zeng's girlfriend, one of her close friends. The blame is pushed to General Zhuo and the angered General Zeng attacks Zhuo with support from Japanese forces. One night, the Japanese corner Chen on the street and bring him to their headquarters to torture him. Concurrently, Chen's friends stage a raid on the Japanese headquarters and cause serious damage with explosives before fleeing the scene. The Japanese track down Chen's comrades and murder them in revenge later. Chen is thrown out of a car in front of the nightclub and remains in coma for days while he recovers from his injuries.
With the Japanese invasion underway and General Zhuo killed in action with his forces in full retreat, there seems to be nothing that the resistance can do to prevent the Japanese from occupying Shanghai. Chikaraishi sends Kiki to challenge Chen Zhen to a fight. Chen defeats all the combatants, after which he faces Chikaraishi in a one-on-one bout and defeats his opponent eventually. At the end of the film, Chikaraishi is replaced with another officer while Chen continues to help the resistance oppose the invaders.
CAST[]
- Donnie Yen as Chen Zhen, the protagonist of the film.
- Shu Qi as Kiki / Fang Qing / Captain Yamaguchi Yumi, a Japanese spy.
- Anthony Wong Chau-sang as Liu Yutian, the owner of the nightclub Casablanca.
- Huang Bo as Inspector Huang Haolong, a police inspector.
- Kohata Ryu as Colonel Chikaraishi Takeshi, the antagonist of the film.
- Akira as Chikaraishi Sasaki, Colonel Chikaraishi's younger brother.
- Yasuaki Kurata as Tsuyoshi Chikaraishi, Colonel Chikaraishi's father, the Hongkou dojo master who was defeated and killed by Chen Zhen years ago.
- Zhou Yang as Qi Zhishan, Qi Tianyuan's sister.
- Huo Siyan as Weiwei, General Zeng's girlfriend.
- Shawn Yue as General Zeng, a northern warlord whom Chen Zhen saves from assassins.
- Ma Yue as General Zhuo, General Zeng's rival.
- Ma Su as General Zhuo's wife
- Chen Jiajia as Huang Yun, a Japanese spy working at the Casablanca.
- Zhang Songwen as Wenzai, the editor of the Shanghai Times.
- Lü Xiaolin as Qiuting, a student protester.