Fearless Director's Cut DVD Worth a Second Look

I have to admit to not liking Jet Li's Fearless very much the first time I saw it, in its U.S. theatrical release. Yes, the aspiring filmmaker in me drooled over the beautiful cinematography in the film and the martial arts fan in me enjoyed most if not all of the wizardry shown in fight choreography. Overall though, I found the work a very strange mismatch, with the visual beauty of Fearless in stark contrast to both the story and characterization, both sadly lacking, so much so that the people and events in the movie rarely rose above the level of stereotypes or cartoon characters for me. In the first thirty minutes Ronny Yu and Jet trot out just about every martial arts cliché you can think of, from the multinational tournament it begins with to the boy who has to train himself in wushu while living in his father's martial arts training school. From his followers who repeat the exact same words every time he wins -- “You're great, master,” to a Mother who speaks only in clichés, it's so one dimensional as to be painful, especially to an Asian-American who was hoping a self-proclaimed “epic” would do more than make the same mistakes so many such films have made in the past. With such beautiful cinematography in the background, it was kind of like watching an episode of the Power Rangers against a Renoir or Magritte backdrop, without the intentional camp factor.

That's an odd way to begin a positive review, isn't it? Because I just watched the Fearless Director's Cut DVD and I loved it. I don't think I've ever had such a wide difference in opinions between a theatrical and DVD release before. Yes, the film still has a few of the same flaws I found annoying in the theater version, especially the use of different film speeds in the fight scenes, which totally destroyed the credibility of these scenes for me. When you have such wonderful talent to work with, manipulating the film in that way purely for effect seemed like such a waste, and left me wondering if I had wandered into a revival of Kung-Pow: Enter the Fist or something. But the forty-five minutes or so added back into the film in the Director's Cut truly changed almost every other criticism I had of the film. Here was the characterization and depth of storyline the U.S. theatrical version was missing, the background and detail that allows even a non-Chinese viewer to understand and appreciate the epic nature of Huo Yuan Jia's tale. The only extra bits in this new cut that felt long, ironically, were the little parts of additional fight scenes, as they really offered nothing new except for some brief glimpses of Thai fighting that Tony Jaa does much better anyway.

It's truly a shame that audiences here in the States will never get to see the film the way it was intended to be and will forever judge it on the horribly cut down version shown to them. But the whole situation is tragically ironic, and indicative of the mentality displayed by a majority of U.S. film companies when bringing an Asian movie to the U.S. or even remaking one here. In this case as in most, the obvious decision was that action and fight scenes sell, story doesn't. It's almost as if U.S. movie companies don't believe their audiences can be bothered to read a movie story or get to know its characters via subtitles, so the automatic equation is subtitles = comic book level dialogue and plot. The irony comes in their marketing as an epic, when they've edited anything truly epic out of the stateside release. It's heartening to see some of the newer Asian filmmakers and films breaking that cliché, and telling deep and engaging stories with sympathetic and believable characters.

So if you are a martial arts and historical epic fan like me and were disappointed in Fearless when you saw it in the theaters, do yourself a favor and give the Director's Cut DVD another chance. I won't say it's the best martial arts film ever and it may not even be Jet Li's or Ronnie Yu's best films, but at least the extra footage previously edited out provides a balance and coherence to the work that was sadly lacking before.

I am Sun-Yi Park.