Once Upon a Time in China (DVD)

Once Upon a Time in China (DVD) ... released 17 November, 1998 at Image Entertainment / Features of the DVD: Colour, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen / The first of a popular series (six in all) starring the charismatic and athletically adept Jet Li. Li plays legendary folk hero Wong Fei Hong, a late 19th-century southern Chinese healer and kung fu master. The story begins with Western powers (American, British and French) encroaching on the city of Canton. Wong is asked by the Black Flag army to safeguard the town by creating his own militia of kung fu experts. His assistants include the butcher "Porky" (Kent Cheng), a Chinese-American named Bucktooth So (Jacky Cheung) and his westernised "Auntie" Yee (Rosamund Kwan), a non-blood-related childhood friend for whom he holds a special affection. But the Westerners aren't the only problem in Canton. The ShaHo gang terrorises local businesses and has begun dealing with the Americans in exporting Chinese for slave labour and prostitution. A down-on-his-luck kung fu master named Iron Vest Yim (Yan Yee Kwan) has decided he needs to defeat Wong to open a school and Leung Fu (Jackie Chan contemporary Yuen Biao), a travelling opera troupe groupie, just keeps getting in the way. This epic martial-arts film showcases Li's amazing fighting and acrobatic skills and established Tsui Hark as a top-notch action film director. The final fight scene between Wong and Yim entails a dizzying orchestration of kicks and punches while teeter-tottering on ladders. The DVD features star bios, filmographies, trailers and clips from early Wong Fei Hong films that starred veteran actor Kwan Tak Hing. --Shannon Gee