Fist of Legend (1994) remakes Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury (1972) and sequences from this movie inspired other movies. For example, the early fight sequence in the dojo inspired The Matrix’s training sequence between Neo and Morpheus.
I don’t intend this article to be a review of Fist of Legend (1994), but I do wish to explore this one on one fight sequence which I think is the best one on one fight sequence in the movie.
The fight sequence in question is Jet Li vs. Yasuaki Kurata
So what’s the score? Kurata plays Fuimo Funakoshi a Japanese fighter who also is the Uncle to Li’s Japanese girlfriend Mitsuko Yamada. In this fight, Fuimo has been ordered by a ruthless Japanese General Fujita (also known as “Supreme Killer”) to enter into a fight and kill Jet Li’s character Chen Zhen.
Fuimo is thoughtful, and doesn’t like being ordered around by Fujita. He suspects Fujita represents a new breed of Japanese soldier who talk of honour and the warrior spirit; but only use it for political gamesman ship and reluctantly agrees to the order.
What I like about this fight is how Fumio almost immediately breaks Jet Li’s rhythm by “warming up”. By the time Jet is ready to fight, he’s almost bored until Fumio launches an all out attack.
It’s the storytelling in this fight sequence that I enjoy so much.
Whether it’s Fumio’s chat with Li during the fight, or how he learns to adapt and leans into this adaptability as the fight continues.
The dialogue post-fight shows Kurata’s character’s wisdom and understanding of hand-to-hand combat, as well as his great respect for Chen Zhen and his master, it gave a lot more depth to the fight itself.
Although depending on what version you are watching, Kurata explains that a gun will always beat a person regardless of how skilled they are; or if you watch a different version Kurata explains that if you learn to become adaptable then you can become unbeatable.
For me, there’s a lot to learn from this sequence and this dialog.
The trouble is, in high stressful situations, it can be easy to forget and sometimes hard to execute on.
So long as we can move one step forward, that is good enough.