Hawk’s Babble-Log

Starring Jet Li, Betty Sun, Dong Yong, Shido Nakamura, and Collin Chou.

Directed by Ronnie Yu.

I’m sad to hear that this is Jet Li’s last epic martial arts film. But at the same time, I’m glad that he has come to a good point with himself and the reasons for which he began his study of the martial arts. I think everyone who studies martial arts, given enough time, comes to this point.

Good film. I liked the story, but I didn’t much care for the ending. I liked that he learned from his mistakes, and I liked the action scenes, but I didn’t like the ending. Still, I’ll buy it.

There is a scene where Jet fights a huge american wrestler-type guy. This guy is huge. And I don’t mean fat; I mean tall and muscular. He must have been two or three feet taller than Jet. This guy has creative lines of dialog, such as, “RAARRR!”, and “AAARRH!”, and “GRRRRRRRR!” He’s big and tough, but Jet manages to find ways to not get beat up by him. I like how the fight ends. The interesting thing about this guy is that he plays a very similar part in another martial arts movie, The Protector with Tony Ja. And he has the same creative lines with Tony.

I must take a moment and comment upon the good ol’ days when men fought with honor. What do I mean by this? Let me explain… In the middle of a fight with a Japanese guy, Jet manages to swap weapons. I don’t know if it was intentional or accidential, but the Japanese guy had a sword and Jet had a three section staff, and they swapped right in the middle of the fight. Now the Japanese guy has the three section staff, and Jet has the sword. Jet is good with virtually all weapons, so he kicks ass with it. But the Japanese guy has some trouble whipping the three section staff around and accidentially hits his head. Jet sees this and, without a word, stops fighting and offers the sword back to his opponent. That’s honor. He simply holds it out on his fingers for his opponent. The Japanese guy also has honor as he stops fighting, folds up Jet’s three section staff and hands it to Jet. Jet takes his three section staff and, for just a moment, has both weapons in his hands. Then the Japanese guy takes the sword back, and they resume the fight.

That was an awsome scene.

So, the film is good, but I just don’t like the ending very much. Nevertheless, I’ll buy it. Why? Because, well, I’ll buy anything with Jet Li in it.