Raymond Chow is the greatest producer of martial arts films in the world, and has an amazing 30 year career that resulted in some of the greatest Kung Fu films ever made. From Bruce Lee’s breakthrough films like THE CHINESE CONNECTION and FISTS OF FURY, to Jackie Chan hits like RUMBLE IN THE BRONX, Chow has delivered the best martial arts pictures ever made. In 1998, Chow and director Wai Keung Lau revolutionized the genre with the turbo-charged and highly-stylized martial arts fantasy THE STORM RIDERS. That film drew people back to the fading HK cinema scene, and wowed audiences worldwide in art houses and on home video. So, it goes without saying that Raymond Chow and the filmmakers would reunite nearly everyone (including most of the cast) for the follow-up. A MAN CALLED HERO debuted the following year, and despite the critical drubbing, proved to be profitable. In 2000, Universe Laser and Video released the title on import DVD.

Ekin (THE LEGEND OF SPEED) Cheng stars as the stern martial artist and family man, Hiro Hua. Christy (STORM RIDERS) Yang is Hiro’s beloved wife, Jade. Nicholas (YOUNG AND DANGEROUS: THE PREQUEL)Tse plays Hiro’s young son, Sword. Yuen Biao is the headstrong manager of the Chinese House. Qi (STREET ANGELS) Shu stars as a female Ninja, Mu. Francis (THE KUNG FU CULT MASTER) Ng is Hiro’s superhuman enemy, Invincible. Ken (LEGEND OF THE DRUNKEN MASTER) Lo plays Luohan the wise monk. Anthony (THE UNTOLD STORY) Wong is Master Pride, Hiro’s Kung-Fu master. Grace (GEN-X COPS) Yip is Hiro’s daughter.

The story opens in 1914, with Hiro Hua being accepted as a student by Master Pride (Anthony Wong), who is soon to be the leader of the Martial Society. As Hiro returns home, he finds that his family has been murdered by Caucasian gangsters. After Hiro extractives deadly revenge on one the murderers, he is forced to flee China, leaving behind his wife Jade (Kristy Yang) and his friend Sheng Lo. The film jumps forward to 1930 as Sheng Lo arrives in New York with Hiro’s son, Sword (Nicholas Tse). Searching New York for his Father, Sword finds Monk Luohan (Ken Lo), a man wanted by the police for suspicion of murder 15 years earlier. Luohan relates the story of how he and Hiro were treated as dogs on the boat trip to America. Hiro would search the boat for scrapes of food, offering it to the Monk. Their friendship sealed, the two men soon find more hardship once arriving in America. Placed to work in a mining site called Steel Blue Canyon, which is owned by the same company that had been involved with the murder of Hiro’s family.

The hardship and brutal treatment of the workers of the mine leads Hiro to start a workers strike. When two of the company’s foremen are found dead, the foreman, Bigot captures Hiro and tortures him. One night, Luohan tries to rescue Hiro. He kills two of the guards and attempts to dig Hiro out. Suddenly, he is aided by Hiro’s martial arts brother, Shadow, who spirits Hiro away. Discovered by the camp foreman, Luohan flees and disappears into New York’s Chinatown. Hiro wanders throughout Chinatown, working as a rickshaw driver. Sheng Lo continues the tale, telling Sword of the day that his Mother, Jade came to New York to find Hiro. Their reunion is happy and sweet, with Hiro finding out that his wife is pregnant with twins. Unfortunately, Hiro is also a wanted man and must remain in hiding.

With all the advance fan buzz about A MAN CALLED HERO, sitting through it ultimately became a disappointing experience. While THE STORM RIDERS was an action-packed fantasy melodrama with impressive digital effects, A MAN CALLED HERO seems lazy and incomplete. The narrative structure of the film removes much of the chronological presentation. The film is needlessly executed through a series of flashbacks that quickly loses the audience and strips the film of suspense. To make it even more confusing, these memory flashbacks are told through two different characters—Shadow and Monk Luohan. Manfred Wong’s script is convoluted and poorly paced. For an action film, there isn’t a whole lot of fights or stunts to break up the melodrama. There are long periods of time when you feel like you are watching a poorly acted character study, rather than a Hong Kong action vehicle. And when the action does come, it’s buried behind a wall of sped-up computer graphics. These effects are colorful, but lack the wallop of even a Mortal Kombat video game.

The dramatic aspects of A MAN CALLED HERO are what drives the movie. However, most of the characters are so shallow that there is no emotional impact whatsoever. For instance, when Hiro’s parents get killed by gangsters in the first two minutes, no emotion is evoked. Wai Keung Lau only allows a couple lines of dialog each before they are killed; hardly a way to build up sympathy. Later, when Hiro’s twins are born, Ekin Cheng exhibits almost no expression. The focus in A MAN CALLED HERO is not on action, it’s on the story of Hiro and his family. There is much melodrama and dialog through the film, so you would expect the acting to be a notch above your average Jackie Chan film. Except for Christy Yang and Anthony Wong, the acting in A MAN CALLED HERO is fairly wooden. This is the same cast from THE STORM RIDERS, but they all have much less to do here, especially bad guy Francis Ng—who doesn’t even show up until the last 10 minutes (and even then, he is a mere special effect). Ekin Cheng physically fits the role of Hiro, but he sure doesn’t exhibit any range (if you don’t believe me, check out the masked character of Shadow, who displays much more emotion than Cheng). Even the appearance of Hong Kong veteran Yuen Biao can’t save the film.

The conclusion features a dazzling showdown between Hiro and Invincible, but even this is hurt by the rapid-fire MTV editing. The entire movie drags on for 90 minutes, and when the filmmakers finally kick in the major action set piece, you can’t even enjoy it because of the Michael Bay inspired editing. Don’t blink, because in the half-second your eye is closed, you’ll miss the over-cranked final battle. To make matters worse, the movie ends on a sour, incomplete note which is a cheap way to leave things open for a sequel. If you are an HK action fan, you’ll be surely disappointed with how the filmmakers string you along and don’t deliver much else but a shallow display of computer graphics imagery.

-  Tony Mustafa