The Tai Chi Master 張三豊

A different beast to Jet Li's version but it can stand proudly as a quality film

Directed by Lin Zhenchao and Cheng siyi

Starring: Wu Yue, Liu Yan, Zhang Kai, Zhang Chunzhong, Zhang Mingcan

2022

Mandarin

There is a lot of crap on iqiyi and wading through the rubbish can be dauting. Out of curiosity I stumbled on The Tai Chi Master starring Wu Yue and to my surprise it wasn't half bad. This is a larger scale web film with decent sets and some nice cinematography, it shows that a web films can be competently handled.

Wu Yue stars as Zhang Junbao a disciple at Wuji sect. He's care free, kind hearted and trustable so his master gives him the key overseeing the imprisonment of Wei Tianxing the lord of the evil sect. Junbao occasionally visits Wei to share wine and talks while Wei would bestow Junbao with some new martial arts techniques. At the same time the evil sect are biding their time to save their master. With the aide of a mysterious figure, who has his own agenda, the evil sect storms the Wuji school and having managed to obtain the key in a previous encounter with Junbao, they free Wei. With the Wuji students all killed off Junbao with another disciple, Shi Mei, they venture to find the other supreme martial arts masters but they encounter Wei as well as the mysterious figure who reveals his ultimate plan. Having failed, Junbao is wracked with guilt and it is here he has his enlightentment and understands the meaning of life which results in him inventing Tai Chi style. Using this new found skill he confronts the mysterious figure and puts an end to it all.

Some may have some recognition of the title from the 1993 Jet Li film of the same name The Tai Chi Masterbut other than a sharing the same title it's a completely different story.

While Jet Li's film characters and situations were more grounded, 2022's The Tai Chi Master is more fantasy based with CGI creatures and magical powers. Though Wu Yue’s version doesn't quite reach the heights of Jet Li's outing it does stand as its own film.

Wu Yue is likable as our lead protagonist and has great chemistry with child actress Zhang Mingcan playing Shi Mei the child disciple who loves Junbao. Mingcan is great in her role and is able to emote joy, pain and her ultimate outcome is heartfelt. In fact the cast here are all strong with only Zhang Kai playing the villain that really let things down. His performance is caricature and he scours a lot. There is a tad of too many characters with some meaning very little to the overall plot.

The fight scenes are pretty good considering it's a web film. The choreography is creative allowing for combinations to play out and the camera work along with editing compliment matters. Wu Yue looks the part even though he's not a martial artist per se, he handles the choreography well and shows great fluidity in his movements. As expected there is a lot of wire work but they are very well done, never feeling too floaty. I think if have the fights were a tad longer it would have been a fantastic fight film. Being the norm now is the use of CGI which it does appear frequently and sadly the quality is pretty low thankfully it doesn't ruin the fight scenes. In the film there’s this CGI creature that appears often, the effects aren’t great and it feels like an odd addition to the film but again it doesn’t hurt matters.

The Tai Chi Master is pretty impressive, it doesn't do anything new but handles playing save very well. Decent fight scenes, good acting and an easy digestible story makes this worth a watch.