This hard-hitting movie tells the story of Huo Yuanjia, the man who founded the Jingwu School and represented Chinese martial arts to generations, a man who fought his way out of darkness and into history.
Huo Yuanjia is played by Jet Li, the most accomplished martial arts star working today who has built a phenomenally successful career out of his skills as a fighter. Yet for Li, martial arts has always been about more than fighting and violence. "It’s not enough to know how to fight." says Li, who is also the producer of Fearless. "You have to understand the spirit of martial arts."
A character that Li has been developing for over ten years, Huo is imbued with many of Li’s own experiences. "In Fearless, the audience will recognize that Jet Li is the person who has brought martial arts to the contemporary world. Jet Li is the modern-day Huo Yuanjia," says director Yu.
To which Jet Li retorts, "If I am Huo, then Ronny Yu is the one who inspired me to push my acting to a new level, and made me see martial arts in a whole new light."
Yu shares Li’s vision: "Fearless is not an ordinary action film. It is a martial arts film about the futility of violence. I want young people to come out of the theater feeling seven feet tall, not because they’ve just seen someone beat somebody up, but because they have just seen someone refrain from killing."
The production crew built elaborate sets to capture the beauty and turbulence of turn-of-the-century China and traveled hundreds of miles throughout China to find the ideal backdrop for Huo’s redemptive story. "When we came across this abandoned village in remote Zhejiang province, I knew it was the perfect spot," explains the director. "But it wasn’t easy to film there. We literally had to build a road so that we could access the village."
The director also scoured the world for the perfect cast to bring the story to life. Japanese superstar Nakamura Shidou learned to speak Chinese for his role in the film. "It would have been easier to dub (Nakamura’s) lines," explains the director, "but he wanted to speak the words himself, to get into the part. I have huge respect for his talent and integrity."
For the important role of Moon, the blind girl who helps Huo, the director met hundreds of actresses, but none of them had the right serene quality that was crucial to the part. "When I saw a photo of Sun Li, I knew immediately that we had found Moon," says Yu. But what he did not expect was Sun Li’s careful research into her role that found her volunteering at a school for blind children in her native Shanghai.
"Moon may be blind, but the love that she shares with Huo is from the heart," explains Sun Li. "Like wushu, their love is a spiritual experience, rather than the physical kind."
The road to Fearless began a year ago by chance, narrates Yu. "I was passing through Hong Kong and over coffee one afternoon, [the producer] Bill Kong asked me which Chinese actor I would most like to work with. His question surprised me because at that time, I had no intention of making a Chinese film again after working in Hollywood for so long. But what surprised me even more was that I knew immediately who I wanted to work with–Jet Li. He is the only actor I know who can really do it all. He has a true martial arts background, he performs all of his own stunts, and above all, he can really act. If I were going to make a Chinese film again after all these years, I would only do it with Jet Li.
"As soon as he heard this, Bill showed me a script that he had been developing with Jet about the real-life Chinese martial arts champion, Huo Yuanjia," continues the director. "At first, I couldn’t see a reason for making this film. Yes, there would be lots of great fight scenes. Yes, Huo is an interesting historical character, but it had all been done before. The story still needed something that speaks to the contemporary audience; It needed a soul.
"The turning point was when I met Jet Li," adds Yu. "He told me that each year in China, more than 280,000 people commit suicide. This troubles Jet, who thinks that young people today have forgotten how to believe in themselves. I was deeply affected by what he said, and all of a sudden I began to see potential in Huo’s story. Huo is a patriotic figurehead in Chinese history because he united all the different schools of martial arts under one roof and introduced China to the virtue of sportsmanship. He gave hope to his people at a time when China’s national morale was at an all-time low.
"I felt that with the troubling number of disaffected youth in China today, and with the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, now was a good time to examine the concept of sportsmanship," Yu explains. "But I was adamant that our film should speak to everybody–and so the story should not be about Huo Yuanjia the hero, but rather Huo the man. An ordinary fighter, whose pride and arrogance nearly destroys him, but who finds redemption when he learns that martial arts is a spiritual challenge, not a physical one."
Concludes Yu, "The Chinese character for ‘martial arts’ is made up of two parts–characters meaning ‘stop’ and ‘war’. The fact that martial arts is a discipline that promotes peace, not violence, sits at the very heart of our story."
Opening across the Philippines on March 1, Fearless is distributed by Buena Vista International through Columbia Pictures.