Tai Chi II

Once again, Yuen Woo-Ping has directed another highly entertaining period kung fu movie. He seems to be very good at that. The story is fairly typical, revolutionaries and opium smugglers in turn-of-the-century China. The action is what counts. There is a lot of martial arts in this movie. Jackie Wu, who I believe studied at the Beijing wushu institute, is impressive. He does a lot of good wushu and tai chi. Yu Hai and Billy Chow also show up and do some impressive moves. The bad guy from Fong Sai Yuk 2 and New Legend of Shaolin makes an appearance and copies "Iron Head Rat" from the original Drunken Master film. There are a lot of wires as well as authentic wushu and tai chi so be warned. I also liked the fact that there is actually a relationship in this movie that goes somewhere, something I rarely see in a kung fu movie. Sibelle Hu and Christy Chung are also pretty. Overall an entertaining kung fu flick.

Tai Chi 2 stars a great martial artist, Jackie Wu. He looks like a young Jet Li! His martial arts are fast, crisp and smooth. This movie is filled with action and martial arts! Jackie wu does some great Wu Shu and Tai Chi here. Yuen Woo Ping directed it and it shows. It includes the villain in Fong Sai Yuk (the bald guy, Chuen-Hua Chi) and the pimp ass Tai Chi master in all of the Shaolin Temple movies and in Tai Chi Master (Yu Hai), and the badass general in Fist of Legend and many other movies (Billy Chow).

His character is a bit of a smartass, but it works well within the story. Its a cute story and every five minutes of so...boom great martial arts sequences! :) This is one of my personal favez, because of the fresh new Jackie Wu, who later went on to star in the Hong Kong TV Series Shaolin Temple directed by none other than Yuen Woo Ping.

Jacky Wu (former student of the beijing wushu team, who formed Jet li) plays Jackie: a young man that has to fight opium dealers. Most of the time, the fights look quite nice but the acting is so terrible (particularly from the white villain). There is also a cheap love story between Christy Chung and Jacky Wu and sometimes you can even see the cables in the fight scenes, particularly in the final fight. This movie deserves a 7.5/10 just because of the action sequences, nicely choreographed by one of the great: Yuen Woo ping.

I saw this movie hoping it would run along the lines of "tai-chi master". After seeing the movie I'm not even sure it this is the sequel to it. There was very little, if any, reference to tai-chi. The acting was below average on almost all the actors. The story was very superficial with a simple plot. But then again, I don't watch hong-kong movies for their amazing storylines, I watch them for the fighting. And that's exactly what is this movie's strong point, the fighting is pretty nice, and inventive(pig-tail whip). Coolest fighting-scene was the one against the dad. Still, I can't reccomend this movie. Hopefully, a sequel worthy of being associated with tai-chi master will come along. Until then, I suggest you all dig out the original.

Since I have been practicing Tai Chi for a little while, I like to watch movies that have Tai Chi in them. This one has some cool wire work, but also some great Tai Chi. It's also got a cute story. I think anybody who likes martial arts films would enjoy this movie.