Asian Movie Review: Tai Chi Hero (太極2英雄崛起, 2012)

Just got home from watching "Tai Chi Hero", aka the sequel to "Tai Chi Zero", that you'll recall I reviewed here just three weeks ago.  That's because these two films were uniquely released over less than 1 month period. 

I thought the first installment had promise, but overall was not that enthusiastic about it,  but I have to say the sequel definitely is a step up.  In multi-part movies this sometimes happens, where the first one is all ground work and the excitement is saved for the finale...  

But in this case I think overall everything just seemed to improve,  the story, the characters, the action, etc.

Whereas the first one spent a lot of time focusing on Eddie Pang's not very impressive or believable character and the "Troy #1" super steam punk village destroyer / rail road making tank thing....     I found this to be a slow, not very impressive drain on the energy of the movie.  Thankfully "Tai Chi Hero" focuses on characters and martial arts and much less on gimmicky machinery (and the machines it does focus on are much less boring...)

The other slightly annoying overuse of on screen graphics in the first one is much less and therefore a welcome enhancement rather than an over the top distraction.  :-P

This installment also has some compelling human drama,  giving heavyweight actor Tony Leung Ka Fei a chance to flex his acting muscles which have up to now been relatively unused. 

William Feng, who appears only in the closing seconds of the first part has a pretty sizable part in this film and has a pretty decent story arc, especially with Tony. 

The action also seems better,  partly because of the inclusion of a surprise appearance by Bagua Zhang master Li, played by Yuen Biao -

There are a few more surprise appearances, including -

Daniel Wu x Patrick Tse... in a VERY brief cameo (don't go expecting to see Dan in a big role, you'll definitely be disapointed if you...)

The film was released in 3D, but for some reason the theater I had a chance to see it at only had 2D, so I can't speak on how well its done, but its very watchable in 2D...

Anyway, I recommend you see both films in quick succession and remember that part 1 is a set up for part 2....  for part 2 I'd give it a very solid 8/10.   Averaging the due parts,  that means 7/10! :-P