''Man of Tai Chi'' is a 2013

martial arts film Martial arts films are a subgenre of action films that feature martial arts combat between characters. These combats are usually the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often are a method of storytelling and character expression a ...

directed by

Keanu Reeves Keanu Charles Reeves ( ; born September 2, 1964) is a Canadian actor and musician. The recipient of numerous accolades in a career on screen spanning four decades, he is known for his leading roles in action films, his amiable public imag ...

in his

directorial debut This is a list of film directorial debuts in chronological order. The films and dates referred to are a director's first commercial cinematic release. Many filmmakers have directed works which were not commercially released, for example early work ...

. It also stars Reeves,

Tiger Chen Tiger Chen (; born 3 March 1975) is a Chinese martial artist, stuntman and actor. Tiger Chen is Yuen Woo Ping's protege and Keanu Reeves's teacher and friend. He was also Uma Thurman's stunt double. Life Early life Tiger Chen was born on 3 Mar ...

Iko Uwais Uwais Qorny (), known professionally as Iko Uwais, (born 12 February 1983) is an Indonesian actor, stuntman, fight choreographer, and martial artist. He is best known for acting in the action films '' Merantau'' (2009), '' The Raid'' (2011), '' ...

Karen Mok Karen Joy Morris (; born 2 June 1970), better known as Karen Mok, is a Hong Kong actress and singer. She is considered one of the leading East Asian pop singers and actresses with a career spanning three decades. Mok is the first female Hong Kong ...

and

Simon Yam Simon Yam Tat-wah (; born 19 March 1955) is a Hong Kong actor and film producer. He is best known for his performances in films such as '' PTU'' (2003), ''Election'' (2005), '' SPL: Sha Po Lang'' (2005), ''Triangle'' (2007), '' Sparrow'' (2008), ' ...

. The film is multilingual, featuring dialogue in

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

, English and

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

. In the film, a young martial artist is pushed by the need of money to enter the world of underground fighting. The film was released in China on 5 July 2013, and in the United States on 1 November 2013. Despite the critics praising Reeves's direction and action sequences, the film bombed at the box office.

Plot

Hong Kong police The Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) is the primary law enforcement, investigative agency, and largest Hong Kong Disciplined Services, disciplined service under the Security Bureau (Hong Kong), Security Bureau of Hong Kong. Pursuant to the one c ...

officer Sun-Jing is investigating Donaka Mark, who is hosting an illegal fighting operation. Donaka attempts to recruit Tiger, a young working-class disciple of

Tai Chi is a Chinese martial art. Initially developed for combat and self-defense, for most practitioners it has evolved into a sport and form of exercise. As an exercise, tai chi is performed as gentle, low-impact movement in which practitioners ...

at a Wu Lin Wang Competition. Donaka offers large sums of money to fight for him but Tiger refuses, as fighting for money would compromise his honor. Soon after, land inspectors declare Tiger's Tai Chi temple structurally unsafe, intending to demolish the temple. To preserve the temple, Tiger applies for historic protection status, arguing it is a place for cultivating peace and wellbeing; however, he requires a large sum of money to repair the temple and accepts Donaka's offer. Donaka's fights take the form of modern

gladiatorial combat A gladiator ( , ) was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their ...

enjoyed by wealthy individuals. Tiger earns enough money to repair the temple and improve his quality of life, but develops a more brutal style. In the Wu Lin Competition, Tiger viciously injures his opponent; the authorities reject his temple petition for historical protection, as his actions at the competition clearly do not represent peace and wellbeing. Tiger nearly kills his next opponent, but relents at the end. Realizing how much he has changed for the worse, Tiger declares his intention to stop fighting for Donaka and contacts officer Sun-Jing. They plan to track the location of the next fight and arrest Donaka. Donaka prepares a fight to the death for Tiger. Donaka reveals how he engineered the temple's crisis to manipulate Tiger; he wished to transform him from innocent martial arts practitioner to ruthless killer. Tiger refuses to fight his assigned opponent and Sun-Jing's officers storm the compound, but Donaka escapes. Later, Donaka arrives at the temple and begins a fight with Tiger. Donaka initially has the upper hand, but Tiger re-embraces his Tai Chi training and manages to palm-strike Donaka despite getting stabbed. A dying Donaka expresses his pleasure for having pushed Tiger to become a killer. In the aftermath, Sun-Jing is promoted to Superintendent and Tiger's temple petition succeeds. Tiger intends to open his own Tai Chi school in the city to continue the legacy of the Ling Kong Tai Chi.

Cast

as Donaka Mark, the film's main antagonist *

as Tiger Chen Linhu *

as Sun Jing Shi * Yu Hai as Master Yang * Ye Qing as Qing Sha *

as Superintendent Wong * Sam Lee as Tak Ming *

Michael Tong Michael Tong Man-lung (Chinese language, Chinese: 唐文龍; Cantonese Romanization: Tong Man Lung (Tang Wen Long); born 17 November 1969) is a Hong Kong actor. Filmography TV series *''Return of the Cuckoo'' (2000) *''The Kung Fu Master'' ( ...

as Policeman Yuan *

as Gilang Sanjaya * Silvio Simac as Uri Romanov * Yoo Seung-jun as Chi Tak *

Yuen Woo-ping Yuen Woo-ping (; alias: Yuen Wo-ping; born 1945) is a Hong Kong people, Hong Kong Stage combat, martial arts choreographer and film director who worked in Hong Kong action cinema and later Hollywood films. He is one of the inductees on the Avenue ...

as Man at fight club (uncredited)

Production

Pre-production began in 2008 with years-long script refinements. When the project eventually moved into the production phase,

principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as the ...

occurred on mainland

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

and

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

Release

The film received an R rating from the

MPAA The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, the mini-major Amazon MGM Studios, as well as the video streaming services Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. F ...

, although Reeves said it was shot with the intention of a PG-13 rating. The film premiered in 2013 with showings at the Beijing Film Festival and

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world. Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...

. It was also scheduled to be shown at the

2013 Toronto International Film Festival The 38th annual Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 5 and 15, 2013. ''The Fifth Estate (film), The Fifth Estate'' was selected as the opening film and ''Life of Crime (film), Life o ...

. It became available for purchase on 27 September 2013, via the iTunes Store (VOD) video on demand, and had its theatrical release in the US on 1 November 2013.

Reception

The film premiered at the 2013 Beijing International Film Festival, where it received praise from

action film The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as D ...

director

John Woo John Woo Yu-sen ( zh, t= ; born 22 September 1946) is a Hongkongers, Hong Kong film director known as a highly influential figure in the action film genre. The recipient of various accolades, including a Hong Kong Film Awards, Hong Kong Film Award ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

reported that 71% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 68 reviews, with an average rating of 6.10/10. The site's consensus reads, "It may not be groundbreaking, but ''Man of Tai Chi'' represents an agreeably old-fashioned picture for martial arts fans – and a solid debut for first-time director Keanu Reeves." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 52 out of 100 based on 22 critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Since its release, ''Man of Tai Chi'' has been regarded as one of the best films in Reeves's filmography. Robert Abele of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' called it "a movie streamlined to evoke the timeless zip of martial arts movies past" and praised the "refreshingly grounded and old-school kinetic" action. Sheila O'Malley, writing at RogerEbert.com, also praised the "thrilling immediacy" of the fight scenes: "you realize you are actually seeing these guys actually do this, as opposed to watching something pieced together later in the editing room". Dave McGinn of the ''Globe and Mail'', in contrast, called the film "ambitious but generic" and filled with "stale conventions". Despite the favorable reviews, the movie was a

box office bomb A box-office bomb is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the combined production budget, marketing, and distribution costs exceed the revenue after release has te ...

, having grossed US$5.5 million against a budget of US$25 million.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Man of Tai Chi 2013 films American action drama films American martial arts films 2010s Cantonese-language films Chinese action films Chinese martial arts films 2010s English-language films English-language Chinese films Films directed by Keanu Reeves Films set in Beijing Films set in Macau Films set in Hong Kong IMAX films Universal Pictures films Underground fighting films 2013 action drama films 2013 martial arts films Chinese multilingual films American multilingual films 2013 multilingual films Martial arts tournament films 2013 directorial debut films Tai chi films 2010s Mandarin-language films 2010s American films English-language action drama films Chinese-language American films Cantonese-language American films