Fearless is perhaps Jet Li’s finest film since heading to the States and is a culmination of some solid drama and down right entertaining action. The story of Fearless is a biopic of Hua Yuan Jia , and revolves around the Imperial march of China, and how they laugh off the chinese as the “Sick Man of Asia”. A basic insult to China and all it stands for, with only one man strong enough to stand up to the berating and prove that China is stronger than a few words of pish.

Hua Yuan Jia (Jet Li) is not allowed to lean martial arts at his father’s bidding, and instead is forced to study. Along with his friend in toe, Li practices martial arts in secret while his friend does his homework. On one particular day his father enters a fight with another martial arts master, and rather than learning from his father’s failure as an act of mercy and humility, Li’s character takes it upon himself to act out vegeance and to make his father’s name number one in his province, even after his father’s death.

This isn’t your typical Jet Li film, however, and is the sort of come back film Jackie Chan could only dream about. Whereas Jackie went and continue a well known Franchise with New Police Story, and brought in CGi and wires with awful effect, mixed with drama so bad it was comedic, Fearless goes back to Jet Li’s roots while offering a melodrama set in the 1900s with a modern day feel to it.

There are moments when the film feels like an ad for the 1900s version of L’Oreal where Li having come into tragic circumstances leaves his home to find himself and sanctuary elsewhere. To many these scenes may stink of boredom and obscurity, but for me it was a grateful diversion from all the puppy angst Li’s character exhibits during the early part of the film. There’s a genuine feel about it that works, and instead of being cheesy, except for the hair advert part, it’s tender and convincing.

What the latter scenes demonstrate is that Li is more than just a martial artist, who may decide to switch into deeper, much more dramatic roles than the ones we’re used to seeing him in. This wouldn’t be a bad thing, as it’s neither over dramatic or cringing to watch him in a much more sedate performance.

But then we switch back to the fighting, and the opening scene itself offering no less than three fighting bouts with different fighting stles from boxing, lance and fencing and the Chinese alternative to three. The fights are engrossing and entertaining to watch, though I have to say that they are badly edited at times with actors switching from one position to another without even changing body movement. I understand that Michelle Yeoh didn’t even make it into the final scenes, and ended up on the cutting room floor, relegated to a case of “deleted” scenes syndrome.

One thing I did notice is that the fights are far, far slower than the old Jet Li we know. It’s true the man is reaching his 45th birthday any year soon, and it would be simply illogical to except that he, like Chan, could simply deliver the goods and not break a sweat, but it’s something that is there and something to consider if you’re expecting break neck speed fighting. If anything, they’ve added slow motion sequences, which I thought were going to break into Matrix style sequences which thankfully they didn’t.

Fearless has everything a martial arts film needs and more. I’ve been crying out for a decent martial arts film for quite some time now, and this has managed to satisfy that craving for now. I should mention that this is perhaps the bloodiest and most violent Jet Li film I’ve seen to date (American trash excluded) which bones snapping and crunching, blood spewing on a regular basis and the sheer realism of the violence is perhaps something that needs to be taken in consideration if you’re show casing this for the younger viewer.

It’s strange how a director like Ronny Yu can come up with the likes of Freddy vs Jason and Bride of Chucky, and on the other hand deliver a quite stonking martial arts film in Fearless, having not done anything really since Bride with White Hair.

Granted, Fearless, is not the greatest martial arts film I’ve ever seen, and Tony Jaa is the only one that I can speak of that is pushing the boundries of what martial artists are capable of with the safety of wires or CGi. Still what we have is a typical Hong Kong action film from Jet Li, and that surely can’t be a bad thing?

Verdict: Yu and LI deliver the goods in an entertaining martial arts flick