★★★☆☆
Dir. Peter Chan. 2011. R. 114mins. In Mandarin, with subtitles. Donnie Yen, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Yu Wang.
Liu Jin-xi (Yen) has a history of violence he’d prefer to keep hidden. To his neighbors in the tranquil Chinese village he calls home, Liu is a kindly paper worker with a wife and two kids. But after he dispatches a pair of thieves with vagus-nerve–smashing precision, the family-man facade begins to crack. It turns out that Liu is a former martial artist with ties to a ruthless group of warriors called the 72 Demons. A sickly detective named Xu Bai-jiu (Kaenshire) takes a meddlesome interest in Liu. And so does the 72 Demons’ vicious leader (Wang), who wants nothing more than to confront this deserter and punish him…permanently.
The drama is pure boilerplate: Every scene between Liu and his family has a too-idealized tinge that feels more let’s-get-through-this perfunctory than satirically pointed. And the annoyingly hectoring Xu never seems like a worthy antagonist in the brains-versus-brawn way the movie intends. Fortunately, there are a good number of Yen-choreographed action scenes to break up the monotony. It’s hard to pick a favorite, though the jaw-dropping climactic clash between Liu and his former master gets a slight edge for the giddy ways it pays homage to Wang’s classic roles in wuxia films like The One-Armed Swordsman and Master of the Flying Guillotine. Hi-ya!-accentuated kung fu smackdowns make everything better.—Keith Uhlich
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