Zhong hua ying xiong (1988)

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Siskoid
Jet Li's sole directorial credit, Born to Defense (1986) has more than its garbled nonsense of a title wrong with it, and the fight choreography isn't quite strong enough to save it. Jet stars as a WWII vet (though he plays him using his naive monk persona) who comes home from the war to find American Navy men bullying his villain's citizens. When he dares fight back, things take a turn for the worst, because Chinese films really do tend to pile on the evil. Born to Defense has less a plot than a collection of cruelties strung together. While it's interesting to find Americans in a role usually only afforded the Japanese (see any "Fist of" movie), they are pitifully acted. Oh the actors might be okay, but their voices have been dubbed over after the fact by people even worse than themselves. The slim chance of complexity is robbed of the film when a telegraphed turn for one bad guy fails to resolve itself and Jet finds no ally after all. And it's a tonal mess besides, with comic interludes that won't play well outside of China, and too harsh an outcome for some characters. 6 years 8 months ago