RISE OF THE LEGEND is yet another Wong Fei Hung story, with the Chinese legend this time around played by the wooden but muscular Eddie Peng. He has little of the charisma that Jet Li brought to the role, but the film turns out to be entertaining thanks to a string of well choreographed and violent set-pieces by old hand Corey Yuen, who thankfully doesn't overdo the wirework and CGI and instead offers plenty of hand-to-hand combat instead. The film itself is something of a mixed bag, surprisingly lacking in emotion in the non action scenes, and long-winded at times; half an hour off the running time would have tightened things up nicely. Sammo Hung has a solid villain role and there's some intrigue in the plot, although there are a lot of flashbacks plonked square on in the narrative which test the patience a bit.

Lei is an orphan and a warrior. He joins the infamous Black Tigers gang as an "adopted son" by bringing back the head of a rival gang. The gang controls the piers as well as gambling, opium dens, and brothels. Lei works as a mole within the Black Tigers aiding the Orphan Gang to retake the piers and avenge the deaths of their fathers and free the 300. Film also has an attempt at a love story and has flashbacks.

This is a very long nearly epic tale of a man who championed the people vs. the "villains." The film has some good choreographed "Kill Bill" type of over-the-top martial arts. Just of touch of the anti-gravity. Most of the English subtitles had smooth translations. There were some minor problems with plurals and "Iam" should be two words. This is a martial arts film that has a lot of plot to go with it. There are knife cuts, blood, severed heads, etc. The sex scenes are toned down. We do see a woman's bare back. We see her garment groped, but never with a face attached to it. I wasn't sure what he was grabbing. The Three adopted sons represented 3 evils: Blood thirst, greed, and lust. I am sure there was more symbolism in the film that I didn't grasp.

No F- bombs, sex, or nudity. If you like the martial arts films coming out of China, this is a good one. Good cinematography as usual.

The movie is about the early days of Wong Fei Hung, a real person in late-19th century/early 20th-century China whose deeds have been greatly embellished and made into dozens of films and TV series. He is the same character portrayed by Jet Li in the Once Upon a Time series.

However, the film itself has almost nothing to do with the real person. The main character uses the WFH name and his father conjures up familiar memories of a umbrella-wielding kung fu master popularized by the Iron Monkey film. Also, in the real-life tales of WFH's heroic deeds, it is said that he took on a dock gang in his early days, which this movie loosely portrays.

Other than that, this movie could have simply been a standalone film. But the WFH name is famous throughout China and no doubt was used to sell more tickets.

Although the use of CGI and wire is very noticeable at times, the overall look and choreography of the film is very good. Unfortunately, as is common with Chinese films, too much attention is paid to the look, but not enough to the substance.

Ultimately the movie does not break any new ground. As is common in Chinese action films, characters again do inexplicably idiotic things for the sake of creating "drama" or "emotion" and to create convenient scenarios to push the plot along without any serious attempt to explain WHY.

Overall, it's not a bad movie but it's also little more than another typical Chinese flick that looks good but doesn't do anything beyond that.