How I Would Have Written the Ending to Peter Chan’s Wu Xia

Peter Chan's Wu Xia

MASSIVE SPOILERS – DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN PETER CHAN’S WU XIA

I am a diehard loyal Donnie Yen fan. I was a fan before most people, since the Fist of Fury TV series days. It’s unfortunate because he peaked late to the love of mass audiences but the definite Donnie Yen works are all the films before he struck gold with Ip Man. Films such as Legend of the Wolf, SPL and Flashpoint will remain among my all-time personal favorite martial arts films. Flashpoint is the ultimate achievement in fight choreography. Yen always maintained his own style of choreography, stressing that it should be realistic and grounded in martial arts techniques. The speed and force of hits in Yen choreography are always the highlight of his fight scenes.

Speaking of which, I’m also a Takeshi Kaneshiro fan. He is a very smart actor that nobody ever gives him credit for because presumably he’s too good looking. He’s versatile (he can play drama, sing, and do comedy) and always brings up interesting characterizations to the table. In the beginning stages of shooting Wu Xia, he opted to perform his character in a Sichuan accent, which totally constructed a new layer to his detective character. With the snotty reaction of non-Mandarin actors speaking mandarin in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (which inadvertently lead to Cantonese actors being dubbed in the Mandarin releases)  has no Chinese actor since attempted an accent. The stresses, tones and built-in emotionality of a Sichuan accent made his character more comical and quirky and in my opinion helped us see the intense quirks of his character. This film must be watched in its mandarin version to fully enjoy Kaneshiro’s performance.

So you can understand the excitement I had for Wu Xia when it was said that these two actors were casted together in the same movie.

I rather enjoyed the film. It brought some new colors to the wuxia genre. It contains the best Donnie Yen acting performance. Jimmy Wang is genuinely scary as the villain. I think Takeshi Kaneshiro is snubbed at the Asian Film Awards and the Golden Horse Awards. As much as I enjoyed the film, the filmmaker in me, thinks the third act could have been much better polished to be something great.

So let’s begin with a PLOT SYNOPSIS (feel free to skip if you remember the story):

The film is set in 1917 in a post-Qing Dynasty era, at Liu Village on the border of Yunnan, China. Liu Jin Xi (played by Donnie Yen) lives with his wife Yu (played by Tang Wei) and two children, works as a paper maker in Liu Village. One day, two bandits rob a general store. Liu Jin Xi, who happens to be in the store, gets into a brawl in an attempt to protect the storeowner. He kills the bandits and is branded a hero in his village.

Detective Xu Baijiu (played by Takeshi Kaneshiro) is sent to investigate the case and discovers that one of the dead bandits was Yan Dongsheng, who is among the government’s ten most wanted fugitives. How can a simple commoner manage to take down the two most wanted fugitives? Through an accessment of the crime scene and an autopsy, all of the clues conclude that Liu Jin Xi is an expert martial artist. He’s able to induce brain hemorrhaging by hitting their Vague nerve and alter his weight with his Qi (a scientific explanation for ‘flying skills’ in the wu xia genre). Through many trials of investigation, Xu Baijiu finds out that Liu Jin Xi is really Tang Long – the second-in-command of the 72 Demons, a group of vicious and bloodthirsty warriors of Tangut minority descent trying to avenge the destruction of their people, who brutally murdered a butcher’s family (of Han descent) in Jingzhou ten years ago. Liu Jin Xi walks Xu out to the forest and instead of killing him, Liu spares him. Liu hopes Xu will let him go. Xu immediately returns to the county office to obtain an arrest warrant for Tang Long.

The magistrate delays issuing the warrant, citing lack of evidence while actually demanding a bribe from Xu. Xu eventually obtains the bribe money from his estranged wife (played by Li Xiaoran), who blames him for causing her father’s suicide. After issuing the warrant, the magistrate informs the Master of the 72 Demons (played by Jimmy Wang, the original One-Armed Swordsman) on Tang Long’s whereabouts, hoping to receive a reward. The Master is offended and reveals that Tang is actually his son, and he kills the magistrate by severing his Vagus nerve.

The Master sends his Demon henchmen to Liu Village to capture Tang and burn down the place. While Xu and the constables are on their way there, the two Demon henchmen reach the village first and kill a villager to force Tang to acknowledge his identity. Tang can no longer control himself and he fights and kills the two assailants, one of whom is the Master’s wife (played by Kara Hui), also Tang Long’s mother.

Xu decides to help Tang Long, using his knowledge of physiology, he induces a fake death with Tang Long’s body so the 72 Demons will no longer harass him. When the Demons arrive they lament over Tang’s death, crying over his body. Xu knows that Tang cannot remain in his “death” state for any longer so he revives Tang. Tang severs his left arm in front of the Demons, announcing that he has formally broken ties with them by giving them his murderous hand. The Demons tell him to approach The Master, who is waiting for him at his home.

Tang Long goes home on a rainy evening to find the Master with Yu and his two children. The Master declares that he will let Tang go but he must take Xiaotian’s life as a fair trade off. Tang is enraged and he attacks the Master with a broadsword but to no avail, since the Master uses qigong to protect himself from the blade. Xu Baijiu infiltrates the house through a hatch and  weakens the Master’s defense during the fight by piercing his heel with an acupuncture needle from underneath the floor. The Master is angered and incapacitates Xu. Tang continues fighting but is quickly overpowered by the Master. Just as the Master prepares to kill Tang, Xu notices the needle still stuck in his heel and takes him by surprise, planting another needle in the Master’s neck. The Master is unfazed and mortally wounds Xu by slamming him hard to the ground. The top needle acts as a lightning rod, and in combination with the bottom needle acting as an earthing wire, the Master is charred by a lightning strike, killing him. Xu, with his dying breath, declares the case closed.

The ending scene of the film shows a now one-armed Tang Long heading off to work again. He says farewell to Yu and trails off to work.

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Okay, onto MY SCREENWRITING IDEAS ABOUT WU XIA…

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…Last chance not to spoil it for yourself! 

MY CRITIQUE OF THE ORIGINAL ENDING

My problem with the movie starts in the third act. It all begins with Liu Jin Xi chopping his own arm in front of the Demon lackeys.

Many will argue the Liu Jin Xi’s arm chopping to be a convention of the wu xia genre (though I don’t know where that has occured), it seems to come out-of-left field and out-of-character. The fact that it’s convention doesn’t bother me. Frankly, you can cut both his arms off (Donnie Yen is a kicker anyways), but it’s not justified by the character. The Tang Long character wakes up from his faked death amongst the 72 Demons, his father The Master, isn’t there. He is among lackeys! Why would he chop off his arm in front of them to trade for his freedom? They ultimately do not have the power to decide whether Tang Long can be let go or not. He chops his arm off and then the lackeys tell him he should see The Master as he is the decider. Wouldn’t you feel stupid in that moment if that happened to you?

The film’s major problem in the third act is that it ends with a deux ex machina. Yes, a lighting bolt is what kills the villain. The villain is set up to be so powerful that he is simply unbeatable by either protagonists, neither brains or brawn. An act of god comes in and kills off the Jimmy Wang character. And that’s where they got it wrong! It should be brains and brawn working together that beats The Master at the end.

And even if they beat The Master of the 72 Demons, the story hasn’t ended yet. Tang hasn’t even taken out the lackeys (the ones that cried over his fake death). They’re still alive and presumably around!

MY VERSION OF THE ENDING

Xu decides to help Tang Long, using his knowledge of physiology, they fake Tang Long’s death so the 72 Demons will no longer harass him. When the Demons arrive they lament over Tang’s death, crying over his body. Time runs out and Xu revives Tang before he dies from being in his “death” state too long. Tang fights the Demon lackeys with both hands, finally finishing off the leader, who tells him The Master (Jimmy Wang) is at his house waiting for him. Tang takes the lackey’s broadsword and heads home with Xu.

Tang Long goes home on a rainy evening to find the Master with Yu and his two children. The Master declares that he will let Tang go but he must take Xiaotian’s life as a fair trade off. Tang is enraged and he attacks the Master with a broadsword but to no avail, since the Master uses qigong to protect himself from the blade. The Master breaks off Tang Long’s left arm and gives him a speech about being a traitor to his clan, that he should haven’t joined the Han people and that he should have avenged the death of his people.

While this is going on, Xu Baijiu infiltrates the house through a hatch and weakens the Master’s defense during the fight by piercing his heel with an acupuncture needle from underneath the floor. The Master pulls Xu from underneath the boards and incapacitates him.

Tang takes the blade, continues fighting with one-arm but is quickly overpowered by the Master. Just as the Master prepares to kill Tang with one final blow, Xu plants several needles in the Master’s neck. The Master’s qigong defenses are totally taken down. Tang chops off his head with his blade.

Xu, with his dying breath, declares the case closed. We see Xu die as Yu and the kids come to Tang’s aid. We fade to black.

Some time later, a now one-armed Tang Long heads off to work again. He says farewell to Yu and trails off to work. We see the Liu Village being rebuilt.

FINAL THOUGHTS

So those are my thoughts! That just makes more sense to me. Tell me what you think!

And not that this would matter, but Harvey Weinstein, please don’t call this movie Dragon for the U.S. distribution. That’s a horrid title.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by Tomas Alfredson

I can’t fault you for not liking this movie. It demands that you keep up with it wholeheartedly with your full undivided attention.  Once you decide to do all the work the film is asking you to do, it’s very rewarding. A blink feels like a gunshot. A facial tick becomes a car chase.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy does nothing to make it easy either. Let’s list the things: 1) Piece together the plot, which is non-linear. 2) Figuring out the spy lingo. There is no explanation for it. 3) Figuring out who’s saying what to whom and inducing if they’re lying and matching it to what they said in a previous scene. Lying is an art form in itself. Are they lying entirely? Or just omitting a detail? What motivates a lie?

This is a film that completely functions on a thematic level. Gary Oldman said in an BBC5 interview that director Tomas Alfredson doesn’t even think he made a thriller, this confirms my point. Although the film shows how real spy work is done, this is not a story about espionage at all. No, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is about mistrust. It’s about these men confined in tight spaces, whose job is to constantly suspect each other, how it alienates them apart, and how being human compromises that necessity for them to survive as spies. Every character in the film battles with their own humanity to survive. There is a great scene where George Smiley (Gary Oldman’s character) flat out lies to another character with a perfect poker face and you realize how much more of a cold bastard one must be to do this job well. George Smiley is only vulnerable at home and I liked how they handled the part about his wife. She exists as an idea. She’s the deal he has to make with the devil.

Since I’m a Sherlock fan, I loved seeing Benedict Cumberbatch rise through the ranks into films now. He’s great as Gary Oldman’s younger sidekick who is still wet behind the ears. I look forward to seeing him in the next Star Trek movie. Please don’t make him play Khan. It would be a waste.

Toby Jones’ face screams red herring. He looks like an evil leprechaun and this reminds me of how Sergio Leone used to have a penchant for faces on film and how a face in itself can provoke a feeling like a landscape. I enjoy seeing a director with that level of sensitivity.

I will never just say a film has “good cinematography”, so I’ll always explain why. The film is about discovering truth amongst a cloud of lies and the cinematography really serves that idea visually. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema has managed to find layers of shadow in places that I didn’t know could exist, like the backseat of a car for instance. The camera moves, like the pan shots, really give a sense of place that constructs the moody, smoky, morally ambiguous atmosphere. See what I mean? This is a film about ideas.

Something really noteworthy is how they utilized is Gary Oldman’s glasses as a plot device. Yes, Hint! You must look at George Smiley’s glasses in every scene. It’s used like Maggie Cheung’s dresses in In The Mood For Love. What’s genius about is it forces you to look at Gary Oldman’s eyes, and creates that tension of asking what’s going on underneath the dialogue.

Hands down, Gary Oldman should win the Oscar. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. How does one underplay and still manage to be that engaging? Due to the Academy’s usual taste of rewarding showy loud performances, it looks unlikely. It’s a performance completely constructed around what he’s not showing and what he is not saying. But at least they recognized it. It’s a step, right?

Warrior by Gavin O’Connor

Warrior by Gavin O'Connor

I have a confession to make: I love martial arts. I love martial arts movies. There’s nothing more primal than watching two people beating the shit out of each other. Warrior is a movie that understands this but earns that fun legitimately through the three lead performances. It works on these two levels.

Joel Edgerton brings genuine goodness to the film. His character Brendan Conlon is formerly-failed MMA fighter turned school teacher, the bank is taking his house and now he is fighting in the cage to keep his family together. And through being motivated by family, he becomes a better fighter. You root for him. You want him to win.

I’ve never seen Nick Nolte so raw and completely naked playing this broken old man trying to repair his regrets. The Nick Nolte-isms do not shortcut him. He’s earned that Oscar nomination, though I don’t think he’ll win this year.

Here’s why I think Tom Hardy is a great actor: he acts with his entire body. No, I’m not talking about his deltoids (though “Tom Hardy’s deltoids” completely earn another independent credit in this movie). It’s an fine-tuned, equally internal and external performance. Notice the way he grunts, the weight in his walk, how he speaks under his breath and the way he glares his eyes like he’s going to lose it any second. He’s not even human in this movie. He is a mythic beast. Let’s just say, the bat will be broken.

The fights themselves are exciting to watch because of four aesthetic reasons, 1) The drama works. We care. 2) The actors are doing it. The camera doesn’t do anything to hide a stuntman. 3) The fights happen in film time, not real time. They’re editing on dramatic beats. They’re not sticking to how real MMA fights play out, which most of the time is people hugging each other on the ground. (If you’ve seen Never Back Down, you know what I’m talking about.) They’re presented in a realistic fashion with the boring parts omitted. 4) You feel the pain of these fights. On a side note, I also enjoyed the dual training montage sequence. They’re acknowledging the origin of the DNA strain (uh.. Rocky, anybody?) and trying to evolve it into something of their own. I appreciated that.

This was probably the most fun I’ve had watching a movie this year. I have a soft spot for it.

That said, I’m a little jealous that Joel Edgerton pulled off a flying armbar. That took me months!

My Week with Marilyn by Simon Curtis

The two Michelle Williams performances that I have in my mind are from Brokeback Mountain and Blue Valentine. Therefore, my general visual impression of her in my head is the stressed-out mother holding a baby, due to the fact that she gave strong performances in those 2 films. In My Week with Marilyn, I do not see one hint of that. If there are any Michelle Williams-isms, I don’t see them. You don’t doubt that she is Marilyn Monroe in both the onscreen and offscreen versions. She just is Marilyn Monroe.

Last year, a biopic of Bruce Lee named Bruce Lee, My Brother came out, which covered Bruce Lee’s early life in Hong Kong before he moved to the United States. In that particular period of his life, he hadn’t yet become the fully formed martial artist that we know him for. Even with that, it was impossible for the filmmakers from crowbaring a couple of fight scenes into the film. And here’s my point: You can’t make a biopic of Bruce Lee without fighting. And likewise, it’s impossible to make a biopic of Marilyn Monroe without gazing at her or referring to her how seductively beautiful she was.

A lot of people are going to praise Michelle Williams. It is a wonderful performance by it’s own right and I’m not taking anything away from her. But that alone doesn’t warrant a good film. What general audience will overlook is the entire cast of this film that does the gazing. It’s not enough that they made Michelle Williams’ Marilyn Monroe is attractive. It’s the people that run up to her, the men that want her to blow kisses at them, younger women wanting to be her and older women being jealous or afraid she’ll snatch their husbands. The entire cast essentially sells how beautiful Marilyn Monroe is equally and altogether I think that should be praised as well.

Kenneth Branagh gets down Laurence Olivier’s diction and I rather enjoyed Judi Dench and Emma Watson in their small roles. It’s nice to know that Paula Strasberg (Marilyn’s Method Acting coach, played by Zoë Wanamaker) looked like Edna Mode from The Incredibles.

The film’s structure is interesting, it’s a musical comedy masquerading as a biopic drama, but it’s really in the end a musical comedy. People are taking this seriously because it’s about famous people and the fact that it really happened. It doesn’t matter if this really happened or not. The story hops along fast montages and song numbers, rather than developing a pathos. It behaves much more like a musical comedy than a drama, and it should judged as such. It’s essentially a coming-out-age story about a boy’s first love. It’s all good fun, but very competent good fun.

I have a female friend who once told me that I should never date girls that quote Marilyn Monroe on their Facebook profile. (“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” ) She said it frees them up to act however they want to in any given moment. I didn’t really think about it before till I watched this film. I totally get it now.

Excuse me, while I go delete some people.

Melancholia by Lars von Trier

Lars von Trier loves watching a woman fall apart, even in the face of Armageddon.

Why does he love watching a woman in a hysterical frantic state? I don’t know. Does Lars von Trier have issues with women? It’s very suspect. Is it ultimately interesting onscreen? Yes.

If there is such a thing as beauty in destruction, as beauty in the total surrender of hope, Lars von Trier has somehow captured it and crafted an unique tale about surrender. The first 40 minutes of the film were bewildering and it slowly creeps up on you as you understand the film’s syntax and what it’s trying to achieve. There’s no point writing movie mistakes about the scientific errors of planetary collision for this movie. Von Trier’s scientific set up is obviously metaphorical. What he is really after is human emotions going haywire in the midst of destruction.

Speaking of emotions, this is Kirsten Dunst’s role and the film solely hangs on her performance. It’s a performance that draws all colours of human emotion. She plays Justine’s inner conflict as someone who is trying to care about the people around her against the growing part of herself that has ceased to care about anything at all. Most of her actions don’t appear to make much sense to the other people around her and it’s fascinating to watch because the audience can make sense out of it.

There is a very dark strain of humor running underneath this film. Dunst’s character Justine, in a deep state of depression, is taking the end of the world better than her sister Claire (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, acting as her straight man). There is a noteworthy scene where Claire pleads to Justine asking them to have a nice meal together over presumably the last night of their lives. Justine scoffs at the stupidity of the suggestion, as if trying to put a positive spin at the end of of the world is taking 5 steps back away from the depression that she has already achieved. It’s emotionally complicated, heavily morose and yet hilarious underneath. To find humor in the face of Armageddon is an achievement within itself.

Seriously, what else can you expect when Udo Kier is the wedding planner?

You laugh, don’t you?

Troll Hunter by Andre Ovredal

Troll Hunter exemplifies what happens when you completely hang an entire film on it’s premise. The premise? Trolls exist in our world. We’re explained the science behind trolls, that they’re different types of trolls, that they calcify under sunlight. There is a government division called the Troll Security Team hellbent on keeping the knowledge of trolls from the public. That’s the A story and it’s all very fun and entertaining as we explore this world, but the film doesn’t provide much else due to the complete lack of a B story. As a result, Troll Hunter loses itself in its mythology.

For instance, who are these three students? Other than being classmates, why are they doing this? Who is the hunter? Why am I supposed to care about these people? The story plays out very episodically as we move from hunt to hunt. A character leaves the team but his role is easily replaced by another character. You really start to feel this gap between the various troll hunting set pieces. With every progressive set piece, the film loses its steam. That’s a shame, because the set pieces themselves are very thrilling to watch.

A lot of people would say that the ending was too abrupt. I agree, but it’s a deeper problem than that. I would say the reason the ending feels abrupt is because it’s cutting the story right before you think it’ll end as a shock moment. As if the director thinks it would leave space for the viewer to imagine the aftermath, but we don’t picture it in our heads, because ultimately we don’t care enough about the characters. This year’s Chronicle, excels for the exact same reason, it’s focus on its characters is what elevated the film beyond its found footage and superhero film contraptions.

The found footage film as a concept is losing its edge. It no longer sets the audience into the reality as it used to. It’s like shooting the Borg with the same phaser rifle, the audiences has simply adapted to its frequency and we need to move on to something else.