Today's Hot Kung Fu Trailer: Tai Chi Zero Will KO Your Brain
Posted 10.20.12 by Ryan
Video game and martial arts fans, take note: this is for you.
The first trailer for Hong Kong writer-director-actor Stephen Fung's (House of Fury) Tai Chi Zero arrived last month and impressed us with its strange, Steampunk-meets-martial-arts storyline. The first of a trilogy (the sequel Tai Chi Hero was shot simultaneously), Tai Chi Zero follows Yang Luchan (newcomer Yuan Xiaochao), who has a horn on his head as a sign of his marital arts prowess and travels to Chen village to learn the secrets of Tai Chi martial arts. Rejected by the locals who don't want to share their secrets with outsiders, Luchan must save the town from the threat of a railroad that wants to plow through the village.
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Fung has said that he hopes Tai Chi Zero will "break new ground" for martial arts movies, and the latest trailer offers an example of what he was talking about. On display is the arcade game influence on the movie's delirious visuals — clearly influenced by Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World — as well as some of the movie's positive reviews. io9 has called Tai Chi Zero "a masterpiece of escapist fantasy," while The New York Times said it was "fast and mostly fun." Check out the trailer below to see what you think.
Intrigued? We are too, so to help build the excitement even more, here's a new clip, courtesy of Yahoo, which shows the arrival of the steam-powered railroad machine.
OK, you're right. As fun as the visuals were in that clip, there wasn't a single fistfight, and, considering Tai Chi Zero is a martial arts movie, a fistfight is what everyone wants to see. So, here's yet another clip that offers just that.
Poster courtesy of Well Go USA
Next Showing: Tai Chi Zero opens in limited release today