Legend of Zu

Cast:

Ekin Cheng as Sky
Cecilia Cheung as Dawn/Enigma
Louis Koo as Red
Kelly Lin as Amnesia
Jacky Wu as Hollow/Ying
Sammo Hung as White Eyebrows
Patrick Tam as Thunder
Zhang ZiYi as Joy

Summary

Directed by the legendary Tsui Hark, "Legend of Zu" was another flim acquired by Miramax for a potential international release, but instead sat on the shelves. The film is also a retelling of an earlier version of the film titled "Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain" he directed back in 1983 featuring stars such as Adam Cheng, Moon Lee, Bridgette Lin, and Damien Lau among others. While the older version relied heavily on traditional filming techniques, the 2001 version relied highly on computer generated images and special effects to convey the story.

The film opens with White Eyebrows (played by Sammo Hung) the leader of Emei sensing an imminent attack on Mount Zu from the Dark Lord, Insomnia. He warns his many apprentices to be on guard and to train hard for to that fated day. Meanwhile, on top of neighbouring Kunlun, Dawn (played by Cecilia Cheung) informs her only apprentice Sky King (played by Ekin Cheng) that their school of Kunlun is based on "ying" and "yang" and thus they always only have two apprentices, a man and a woman. We learn that Sky King has trained with Dawn for 200 years. Dawn's skills have not reached a peak as she was in love with her previous master. Sensing that Sky King has fallen for her, Dawn advises him to leave. She gives in her main weapon the "Moon Orb" to take along with him. Dawn hopes that Sky King's abilities can advance beyond hers when he is free of the emotion of love.

Sky King reluctantly takes the "Moon Orb" and prepares to leave. Dawn advises Sky King that regardless of where she is, the "Moon Orb" would be able to lead him to her. With that, Sky King prepares to leave Kunlun. Just as he is walking down the slopes, the evil Insomnia attacks. Dawn is killed in the process as she is no longer in possession of the "Moon Orb". By the time Sky King returns by Dawn's side her body breaks like a clay pot. From that day onwards Sky King trained on top of Kunlun. Another 200 years had passed before Insomnia returned. But this time his focus was on eliminating the neighbouring Emei. Insomnia floats past Sky King and leaves him at peace.

Meanwhile, White Eyebrows advises his senior apprentice, Red (played by Louis Koo), to warn the warring mortals below Mount Zu. Red obeys his master and immediately sets out to warn the mortals below the mountain. Along the way Red encounters Sky King who is also making his way to warn the mortals of danger. Red and Sky King are long-time friends. After exchanging some pleasantries, Red and Sky King descend below. The general refuses to believe Red and Sky King at first. But once Insomnia passes over them, the mortals no longer doubt them and flee for their lives. Except for a female solider named Jen (played by Zhang ZiYi). Rather then flee, she attempts to climb to the top of Mount Zu.

Insomnia immediately tests out Sky King's and Red's abilities. He pits them against their own shadows. Red immediately begins fighting his own shadow using the "72 Spears" a strange weapon that look like wings. Sky King fights his own double with his "Sun Orb" and "Moon Orb". Sky King and Red are not aware that they are in fact actually fighting with themselves when fighting with their own shadows. So each time they hurt their shadows they only ending up hurting themselves. Insomnia begins to taunt White Brows upon noticing that Red and Sky King are no match for him. White Brow leads his apprentices, Enigma (played by Cecilia Cheung), Hollow (played by Jacky Wu), Thunder (played by Patrick Tam), along with the others to confront Insomnia.

White Brows helps Red and Sky King before engaging in a magical battle with Insomnia. Using the powers contained in his "Sky Reflector", White Brows manages to defeat Insomnia. Though he had been beaten, Insomnia manages to survive as a drop of blood, appearing to attempt to escape through the mountains. Hollow uses his "Thunder Sword" and Enigma uses her "Heaven Sword" in random and wild bursts hoping to eliminate Insomnia. But all they succeeded in doing is opening up cracks in the mountain. Insomnia takes this opportunity to enter through the mountain. When White Brows arrives with Red and Sky King, he is totally shocked. He had badly underestimated Insomnia who had manage deceived them all with his attack. Insomnia had wanted to find the "Blood Cave" all along, and they basically opened it up for him. With the powers of the "Blood Cave" Insomnia's strength would grow and he would now be able to destroy Mount Zu. Previously he did not posses such power.

When Enigma sees Sky King she gets a strange vision as if she had known him for a long-time. Sky King gets the same feeling. He notices that Enigma bears a striking resemblance to his former master, Dawn. They are somehow connected to the past. As Insomnia had entered the "Blood Cave" someone needed to go inside, find, and eliminate him. As they were discussing options, Sky King decides to enter the cave alone. He would be joined by Red. But their combined powers are no match for Insomnia. White Brows is required to enter the cave and rescue them. He loses his major weapon the "Sky Reflector" in the process.

White Brows then orders Sky King to assist him in warning the nearby schools of the imminent danger. Sky King agrees. Before he leaves he walks directly pass Enigma and once again he gets a strange feeling. Red is ordered to guard the entrance of the "Blood Cave". White Brows leaves Red with a couple of instructions, to warn Emei at first sign of danger and to kill whatever attempts to escape from the "Blood Cave". Red accepts his mission. The rest of the apprentices leave with White Brows. They go to the neighbouring school at "Point Nirvana" to test its strength using a couple of seeds. Nine flowers immediately blossom to indicate that the power is still strong. But one of the flowers begins to wilt and die. White Brows knows he must take immediate action, otherwise they'd be doomed.

In order to deal with Insomnia the "Heaven Sword" and the "Thunder Sword" must merge, therefore creating a weapon with greater force. But the merging process failed, as Enigma had thoughts about Sky King and Hollow hesitated. Hollow perished in the process, whilst Enigma is saved by Sky King's "Moon Orb" that drained the heat away from her body. White Brows then informs Sky King that he had guessed correctly, and that Enigma is a reincarnation of his former master, Dawn. He now understood why the "Moon Orb" had flew away from his hand and saved Enigma. Still needing the "Thunder Sword" and the "Heaven Sword" to merge as one to deal with Insomnia, White Brows uses his powers to attempt to reincarnate Hollow, giving him the name of Ying.

Enigma is task with the responsibilities of teaching Ying and enlightening him so that he gain regain Hollow's former self, including finding the "Thunder Sword". But Enigma does not know how to enlighten Ying who has lost all of his memory, and abilities. Ying pulls out a rusty sword and attempts to practice with it, not having the slightest clue as what he was doing. As Ying is playing away, Thunder falls in love with the mortal Joy, and agrees to teach her in the ways of Emei. Meanwhile an evil little ferry by the name of Amnesia (played by Kelly Lin) creeps out from the "Blood Cave". Red immediately uses his powers to overcome Amnesia. But she is small, fragile, and not to mention beautiful. She appears to be totally harmless in Red's eyes and he refrains from killing her. Having been left all alone, Red actually enjoys Amnesia's company and allows her to stay around. But he does warn Amnesia to behave otherwise he'd kill her.

Realising that he needed to take decisive action following the death of Hollow, White Brows makes Sky King the temporary leader of Emei. Sky King was the most able, senior, and enlightened person whom he could rely on to defend on Emei, so he accepts. White Brows enters the spirit world in search of knowledge that would defeat Insomnia, leaving behind his "Ming Fire" to Sky King. He advises Sky King to find a way to merge knowledge, the universe, and reincarnation together to form a powerful weapon. Sky King ponders over this for a long time. He receives a visit from Enigma in the spiritual chamber, where the memory of all of the sprits that have been reincarnated have been kept. Before entering the chamber he advises Enigma that she was the reincarnation of his master. But enigma, though feeling a close connection, has no memories of it. So Sky King enters the chamber in an attempt to reach for the "Thunder Sword" and wipes it of its memory of its former master Hollow so that he can assign the "Thunder Sword" to another master besides the reincarnated version of Hollow, Ying.

But he fails because of he could not let go of his love for Dawn when he sees her spirit inside the spiritual chamber. Like Hollow, Sky King falls like a meteor from the sky, landing on the bank of the lake. He has perished as a result. Enigma tries to save Sky King, but without the "Moon Orb" she was not successful. At the same time Sky King dies, Red is possessed by the evil Amnesia. So it appears as if Emei is certain to meet its doom. Thunder, Joy and a handful of apprentices are left to defend Mount Zu. Thunder uses his 'twin Swords? to attempt to fend off the demons attacking Mount Zu without much success. Soon the school of Emei is overrun. Enigma returns and manages to kill most of the demons. Seeing that Red had passed out, Enigma attempts to revive him, thus falling into Amnesia's trap. Enigma's spirit is then possessed by Amnesia and her body is taken back to the "Blood Cave".

Insomnia seizes on this opportunity to use a "Blood Cloud" to attack. At this darkest hour, Thunder finds and battles with Ying, hoping to enlighten him. He finally succeeds as Ying regains some of his memory and manages to locate the "Thunder Sword". White Brows manages uncover the secret of the universe in the spirit world. He uses his new found powers to revive Sky King and present him with the greatest power of all. His "Ming Fire" as a weapon rather than knowledge. Armed with the "Ming Fire", Sky King and Ying set out to save Enigma from the "Blood Cave". There Sky King would have to fight one on one with his best friend Red and recover the spirit of Enigma. Ying uses this distraction to save Enigma's body. Once Enigma becomes one again, she leaves the "Blood Cave" with Ying in an attempt to stop Insomnia from destroying "Point Nirvana".

They finally succeed in merging the "Thunder Sword" and the "Heaven Sword", but Insomnia is more powerful then they could have imagined. They would be required to kill him 9,999 times in order to defeat him. Meanwhile, Sky King manages to defeat Red by driving Amnesia out of his body. Red pleads with his good friend Sky King to kill him, fearing that Amnesia would possess him again. Besides, Red has become weak and would meet a certain doom in any case. Sky King reluctantly agrees to kill his best friend and Amnesia. He would return in time to assist Enigma and Ying in dealing with Insomnia. At the height of the battle, Enigma enters Insomnia's body to possess it. This allows Sky King to destroy Insomnia with his "Ming Fire". But Enigma also perishes as a result. Before she dies, she finally regains Dawn's memory. But it is too late. Once more she breaks like a clay pot upon finally getting an opportunity to acknowledge Sky King.

Following the victory over Insomnia, Sky King leaves Emei in the capable hands of Thunder and Ying. He also reincarnates the spirit of Enigma to assist in protecting Emei. Free of his duties, Sky King returns to Kunlun where he will attempt to re-establish his school of knowledge.

Rating: 3/5

After watching "The Blade" back in 1995, I described Tsui Hark as a master of random chaos and destruction. It seems as if he has not changed at all. The reason I describe Tsui Hark in such terms is that he is someone who is likely to explore every possible angle, theme, main plot, and sub plot in his films and cram it into a short 90 minutes. Then sit back and just pray the audience can follow the jigsaw he has created and make sense of it. It seems as if he's applied the same style of story telling in "Legend of Zu". It is essentially a battle of good and evil, served up in dishes of various varieties, and topped up with computer generated images and special effects.

Watching this flim, was almost akin to watching some bizarre Japanese animation film, full of weird twists, and a head scratching ending. The computer graphics and special effects do make it seem as if you're watching some kind of 3D cartoon. But I guess its suitable to the "wuxia fantasy/magic" genre. Despite this I somehow actually ended up enjoying the film. That was after switching off my brain, for its not a 'thinking man's' film. I ended up laughing at the most ridiculous of things, like the costume chosen for Louis Koo. It basically covered up most of his face.

The film consisted of an all-star cast featuring well known Hong Kong actors and actresses. But with so many special effects and computer generated images, it's sometimes impossible to separate the acting from the effects. Overall I think the acting is of a lower quality then most other films that I have seen. Perhaps the actors felt weird having to work to a blue screen day in and day out whilst looking at golf balls. In a few of the shots the actor's eyeballs are actually looking elsewhere when they were supposed to be focussed on a computer animated effect. So that probably explains it all.

Louis Koo did explain somewhere that he found the "Legend of Zu" to be very difficult work and was the film that he had to work the hardest. But that aside I think the overall cast did well. I loved the scenes between Kelly Lin and Louis Koo. Ekin Cheng did a good job but seemed a little stiff at times (probably because he had to put up looking at golf balls the most). Cecilia Cheung looked really pretty in the wuxia outfit. Patrick Tam didn't get much of a role, and strangely, neither did Zhang ZiYi who was coming off a career performance in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". But once more, Zhang ZiYi's role in this film is perhaps the major reason that Miramax film decided to purchase it for a potential international release, before placing it in storage to collect dust.

Overall, if you're bored and want an "experience" then this film is good to watch. It is also a good movie for passing time. It has a high level of entertainment value. However, it would not be considered a 'classic' film worth storing in your DVD collection, unless of course, you are a fan of one of the actors/actresses in this film.