Champions

Film Reviews

Champions

Starring: Dicky Cheng , Yu Rong Guang

Directed By: Tsui Siu-Ming

Here's a film that took me by storm ,It's all about how in the 1930's the Chinese wanted to send a Team to the Olympics.Even though the first appearance for the Chinese as the Peoples Republic of China was in 1952.

This was a time when they where known as the Republic of China and had sent people in 1932 - 1936 - and 1948.

But this was a time when most of the athletes where Martial artists who also excelled in other areas like running / Gymnastics and such like.So a team was to be picked but first they had to fund the trip and the Government would only fund half of it ,so the athletes had to find ways to make the extra money needed to send a team abroad.

They did this by having fund raising events ,showing off their arts and so forth. But on top of this they had to pick a handful of people to take ,so a competition was held between the Martial arts schools to pick the Best of the Bunch.

This film follows the artists as they do battle with one another and within themselves to pull out all the stops to succeed.The film gives the impression that all Chinese can be Champions and has a feel good factor to it and is very patriotic.

But then it was made during the 2008 Olympics ,so it has a Heavy Influence from this.

Starring Dicky Cheung Wai-Kin,Xie Miao,Priscilla Wong Chui-Yu and legendary actor and a firm favorite of mine Yu Rong-Guang.On top of that it is directed by Tsui Siu- Ming .Which i enjoy his direction off.

Yu Rong Guang plays the head of the China Martial arts academy and is chosen to head up the team and arrange the extra funding needed.

But rival school master Xu Xiandong a proficient Eagle claw master challenges and demands try outs take place to determine who shall go and who shall stay.

All in all i really enjoyed this film with it's excellent Kung Fu battles that take place ,and to see Yu Rong-Guang in action again is a joy to my heart as i was sorely disappointed when he failed to deliver in Jackie's New Police Story.(I so much wanted him and Jackie to go at it).

Some say the film is far fetched ,but hey this is action Cinema from the people that know action a bit of OTT story telling is fine with me especially when it's so much fun .And the Two Hour running time seemed to fly by for me and still could have stayed another half hour if it had to.

So the comments that it should have been 90 minutes long (from other reviews and sources )is obviously that these watchers did not grasp the story or get involved by it.

My opinion is to track this down if you like lots off action and a film that will touch you in many areas.A great film which i wholly enjoyed.

Score out of Ten = 8

The Snake

Trailer