Once Upon A Time In China And America (Blu-ray) (Kam & Ronson Version) (Hong Kong Version) Blu-ray Region A

The plot involves Wong Fei-hung getting amnesia and joining up with a Native American tribe who sensitively rename him "Yellow", and are delighted to see that he can kick the stuffing out of tribal enemies. Wong dons Native American garb, but the Native Americans are mostly played by white and Hispanic people pretending to be Native American, and when they get in fights suddenly they're Chinese stuntmen. It's a free-wheeling racial conversation with stereotypes, caricatures, fight-the-power moments, and bad impersonations all existing side-by-side. Wong Fei-hung and company run riot over American history, with Billy the Kid performing good deeds and getting elected mayor, the nation's first Chinatown being established in the middle of the desert, and Native American tribes attacking wagon trains one minute, and cashing checks at the local bank the next. Everything is fair game for mockery, and even the hallowed Quest for Chinese Identity is burlesqued, but Wong Fei-hung manages to keep more of his dignity in native garb than Jackie Chan would the following year in Who Am I?

Production was, by all accounts, total chaos. Shot in Texas, with up to three camera units filming at once, the conditions were grueling. Food was filled with the ever-present sand, it was freezing cold and the plot revolves around falling into a river not once, but multiple times. The strain barely shows, however, and so the series ends in pretty good condition after five sequels, reprising the original lion dance that kicked it all off seven years earlier. Dance finished, superstar Jet Li, actress Rosamund Kwan, and former stunt double Xiong Xin-xin pile into a carriage and ride off. Maybe the series will be mothballed again. Maybe they make it back to a destabilised China, maybe they get lost in the wilderness on the way. But they don't need to ride off into a sunset, because come what may, these heroes will never get old. As long as we need them, they'll be around.

by Grady Hendrix