Man of Tai Chi: better than average martial arts with great fight scenes

Man of Tai Chi is the story of a tai chi student who is fighting in a tournament in China.  The tai chi student is played by Tiger Chen who has been doing stunts in many high profile martial arts movies since Crouching Tiger.  His character in the movie is also called Tiger, but anyone who has ever seen a Jackie Chan movie can forgive that bit of name play.  The story in Man of Tai Chi is straight forward stuff, but the fight scenes are really good and the movie is better than you would expect.

Man of Tai Chi is also the directorial debut of Keanu Reeves, who stars in the movie as the owner of an underground fight club.  The dialogue scenes with Reeves are the slower parts of the film, whose character once again only has two emotions, stone faced and slightly angry.  The underground fight club takes fighters, pits them against one another and has a global reach with fans all over.

They’re looking for the next big thing and they find Tiger, a peaceful warrior of sorts who is in the tournament using tai chi.  Luckily for them Tiger is going through some financial problems and is open to fighting for money.

The fights are choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping who did all of the fights in The Matrix.  There are more element of the film that also feel like The Matrix, but that’s to be expected given the director and the way that some of the scenes are staged.  The introduction scene where Tiger is initiated is straight from The Matrix, but I was OK with it because it was fleeting and didn’t last too long.

Man of Tai Chi is best when they’re fighting and thankfully there is lots of it.  Look quickly in one of the fights and you’ll see Iko Uwais from The Raid.  I was led to Man of Tai Chi through a review that said it was the best martial arts movie since The Raid.  While that is certainly possible, this is not as entertaining, nor as good as The Raid.

Man of Tai Chi is entertaining, but has some of the weak spots that plague martial arts movies.  The ending is a bit predictable and parts of the plot are formulaic, but you don’t come to a movie like this and kvetch about believability.

The fight scenes are great and worth the price of admission.  Reeves does a nice job of directing the film and really shines in some of the landscape shots in the film.  Man of  Tai Chi is unique for a Chinese movie in that one of the main characters is woman who holds her own in the movie.    The DVD also has some nice extras including a making of.  It’s in Mandarin and Cantonese with English & Spanish subtitles.

Man of Tai Chi is rated R for violence.