Secrets of Tai Chi

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps the greatest Kung Fu movie about Tai Chi Chuan
Review: This video both in DVD and VHS format (I have both, having just purchased a DVD copy), is an English dubbed, panned and scanned, old school Hong Kong cheapie done on a very small budget with mostly unknowns. But it is well worth getting if you like old school kung fu flicks, Tai Chi, and good fighting without wires. It begins with documentary film clips of Chen Xiaowang, one of the greatest Chen style Tai Chi Ch'uan practioners in the world who is from the Chen Family, the creators and preservers of Chen Style Tai Chi Chuan, the "mother" style of all Tai Chi styles. This is interspersed with documentary film clips of another great Tai Chi practioner whose name slips my mind, but trust me, she too is great. The film itself uses the classic cliched kung fu film revenge plot of "you killed my Dad, prepare to die!", but it carries it out with some fresh touches of humor and style and some great fighting sequences. The Tai Chi philosophy and principles are addressed with respect and authenticity. As an amateur practioner of Tai Chi, I can "feel" the "echoes" of genuine Tai Chi in this movie. The locations are sort of haunting and the acting is not bad. There is some classic Hong Kong filmmaking visual "chutzpah", most especially a fight scene featuring dozens of bad guy drones in brightly colored costumes running around in color coordinated circles, conducted by the had bad guy, the evil general. It is like some sort of Busby Berkley nightmare: strangely beautiful, beautifully strange. The dubbing is the typical over-the-top English voice over dubbing, but is not as bad as some and is better than many. It would be nice to have a wide screen version of this movie, but this flawed panned and scanned dubbed, mono print is most likely as good as it will ever get. And again, if you are a fan of this genre, this is a must have--at the very least it is a must see.