Features: DVD, Mono Audio, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 2.35:1, English, Dubbed & Subtitled, French, Spanish, Subtitled
China’s been infected with a plague known as the Western world, and Wong Fei-hung (Jet Li) refuses to stand by and watch as his country is decimated by the foreign forces. A martial arts expert, Wong collides with the foreigners, their influence and especially, their firearms.
Leading his misfit militia, Wong is determined to stop the immoral slave trade that serves the California gold fields. When his favorite aunt is kidnapped to be sold as a prostitute, Wong must battle his countrymen and the superior firepower of the slave traders, all for the very soul of traditional China.
Editor's Note
In one of the recurring gags of ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA, attempts to take Wong Fei Hung's picture always fail. The failure to capture the image of Wong (Jet Li) serves as an appropriate metaphor for the place of the Ching Dynasty folk hero in Chinese cultural memory. A legendary master of a variety of kung fu styles, Wong has been subject to numerous interpretations in dime novels and films since the 1930s. In the late 1970s an irreverent portrait of the young Wong Fei Hung emerged in DRUNKEN MASTER. In director Tsui Hark's hand, the beloved historical figure is given the full lionized treatment as he fights for dignity and self-determination against Western imperialists. A revisionist drama that recalls the struggle of the small-property owner fighting for her land in Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, Hark's epic is both a tragic and heroic examination of China's transition to modernity. Like the best of Hark's films (ZU: WARRIORS OF THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN), ONCE UPON A TIME contains imaginative fight sequences, including "no-shadow" kicks and a thrilling battle using bamboo ladders.
Plot Summary
ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA is a grandiose, epic retelling of the adventures of Ching Dynasty folk hero Wong Fei Hung, whose legendary mastery of a variety of kung fu styles and resistance to Westernization have made him the subject of dime novels and popular lore in China since the 1930s. The subject of a slew of films, Wong Fei-Hung's popularity declined in the 1980s in favor of "Americanized" western-style gunslingers, making this film a throwback of sorts, with a strong pro-unification political subtext, plus plenty of brilliant martial arts action.
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