Hark Tsui's "Once Upon a Time", which packaged old characters in a new way, was very popular. When shooting this sequel, he further pointed out that the reason why ancient China was weak and weak was due to the ignorance of the White Lotus Sect and the corruption and incompetence of Qing court officials. Therefore, revolutionaries such as Sun Wen and Lu Haodong advocated Western civilization to save China. It is not easy for the director to discuss this serious theme in a historical romance and martial arts genre, but still make the appearance of the film look bright and beautiful.
In addition, this episode of Huang Feihong still continues the wonderful martial arts design of the previous episode. In this episode, with the increase in the plot of Western civilization, there are more gunfire scenes, but the action scenes are not as good as the super classic scenes of the barn battle in the first episode. However, the final battle scene of "bundling the cloth into a stick" is still beyond the general level of excitement. The cooperation between Jet Li and martial arts instructor Woo Ping Yuen is outstanding. Jet Li and Donnie Yen brought their martial arts characteristics into full play, becoming the most classic contrasting scenes in kung fu films. And Huang Feihong threw the cloth bag he had worked so hard to grab from the pier to Sun Wenzhi on the boat, and he showed a blue sky and white sun flag. That kind of spontaneous national emotion is better than many deliberately shot policy films.
In this episode of the Once Upon a Time series, Hark Tsui has carried out the national enthusiasm and political philosophy brought out from the first episode more deeply. Linking Huang Feihong with Sun Yat-sen , Lu Haodong and others, and linking Guangzhou's revolutionary situation with folk martial artists, although there is evidence of Da Dao Wang Wu and Tan Sitong's predecessors, in the end, the content of jokes is far greater than the historical facts. Moreover, the obsession with incorporating history into illusory personal legends leads to an absurd outcome that is not even as tangible as the first episode. However, Hark Tsui is not without words. Hark Tsui has his own clear views on Western scientific and technological civilization and Eastern traditional civilization. In the film, it is shown in the passages of Huang Feihong and Sun Yat-sen at the medical conference. Although these views are not unprecedentedly unique, at least he comes from Hark Tsui's personal experience in this unique region of Hong Kong.
The Hark Tsui version of Huang Feihong has more significance than the old version. In the old version of "Once Upon a Time" (Guan Dexing version), Huang Feihong is a deified hero, who does not use force easily, but must punish evil and remove evil. , which often shows the moral power that evil is invincible and the benevolent is invincible. The Hark Tsui version retains these Wong Fei-hung character traits, but elevates the background and theme to the heights of family hatred. Hark Tsui took off the cap and the old-fashioned gown on the head of the old version of Wong Fei-hung in the shape, which turned the patriarchal master into a character of the era whose Chinese culture was impacted by the West, facing the wheel of history. The internal and external troubles came downfor this reason, the director did not even follow history, so that he experienced all the great historical events in modern China to complete the sublimation of the film's theme). However, Wong Fei-hung's mind and spirit of accommodating both Chinese and foreign cultures (such as Wong Fei-hung and Sun Yat-sen's combination of Chinese and Western medicine in "Once Upon a Time in Two Men: Be Self-improvement") has become the director's best way to borrow people's aspirations. Performance. And Hark Tsui himself is based on this broad vision and mind, so that his works have strong creativity, and this "Once Upon a Time" is not only the pioneering work of the new school of Chinese kung fu films, but also unsurpassed. peak.
