LEGEND OF THE FIST PAYS HOMAGE TO CHINESE NATIONALISM
While some 150,000 Chinese fought in Europe to defeat the Germans, Japan seized German concessions in the Shandong Peninsula (including Shanghai) while engaging its navy against Germany in Asia. The Treaty of Versailles, rather than recognizing the role of the Chinese soldiers, awarded the German concessions to Japan, in effect branding China the “sick man of Asia.” China refused to sign the Treaty, and nationalists sought to undermine the increasing influence of Japan in China during the 1920s. Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (Jing wu feng yun: Chen Zhen), directed by Wai Keung Lau, portrays the role of a fictional hero, Chen Zhen (played by Donnie Yen), during World War I and later as a hero of Chinese resistance in the 1920s. The screenplay is by Gordon Chan, who directed Fist of Legend (1994), starring Jet Li as Chen Zhen during the 1930s. Despite a plot with a romance, the film is primarily a martial arts display in which Donnie Yen shows off his muscles in the final scene. MH
THERE BE DRAGONS IS ANOTHER KILLING FIELDS
Roland Joffé, who won a Political Film Society award for The Killing Fields (1984) has gone back to a bloody battlefield, this time the Spanish Civil War. There Be Dragons is a biopic of Josémaría Escrivá (played by Charlie Cox), the founder of Opus Dei, who was declared a saint by Pope John Paul II in 2002. To tell the story, a lame answer to The Da Vinci Code (2006), Joffé invents a London-based journalist, Robert Torres (played by Dougray Scott), whose publisher commissions a book about Escrivá, only to find that his father, Manolo (played by Wes Bentley), was a longtime pal of Escrivá, so he sets up a tape recorder for the story. Since he hated his father and had not seen him for eight years, the film has two parallel plots, with confusing flashbacks. What he learns is that both men have “dragons” in their background—the anticlericalism of the Republicans that forces Escrivá out of Madrid and later sympathy for the communists and Manolo’s fascist leanings. Although the film tries to honor Escrivá’s gospel of forgiveness, the politics is confusing, and the war is gory. MH
COURT INTRIGUE FEATURED IN THE PRINCESS OF MONTPENSIER
In 1567, there was an ongoing civil war in France. Government forces were suppressing the Protestants (Huguenots), even going from door to door in a manner resembling the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany. Marriage within the aristocracy is controlled by parents to advance themselves so that they may enjoy greater favor with the king. Thus it is that the colorless Prince Philippe Montpensier (played by Grégoire Leprince-Rinquet) marries the beautiful Marie Mezières, and they settle in a chateau far from the battlefield. But the Princess (played by Mélanie Thierry), who is deeply in love with her boyhood sweetheart, the Duke Henri de Guise (played by Garpard Ulliel), pretends otherwise after her marriage. One day the Prince is called to war. He entrusts the Princess’s education to his mentor, the Count Chabannes (played by Lambert Wilson), who falls in love with her, albeit platonically. Later, she is presented to the court in Paris, where King Henry III’s brother, the Duke of Anjou (played by Raphaël Personnaz), also has a crush on the Princess. Based on the novella by Madame de Lafayette, the Prince is not amused by his wife, who smiles at others but not at him, as she struggles between passion and reason. The Princess of Montpensier, directed by Bertrand Tavernier, is a classic romantic tale that reveals the customs of the era along with court intrigue. Filming locations include four chateaux and a palace. MH