Thanks Ayako!
Keanu Reeves did a short interview with roll.sohu. It is the first negative piece coming out of China for Man of Taii Chi. The google translator was used for a loose translation. No copyright infreingement is intended.
Tai Chi Man Is Not An Amazing Martial Arts Fim
Recently Keanu Reeves took his directorial debut Tai Chi Man on an eight city promotion tour. The film was screened in each city with the hope of introducing the film and to use word of mouth to generate buzz for the film at the box office. The film had routine problems. The preparation of the film was a little unprofessional, the story was quite simple and there were no Hollywood style visual effects.
Reporter: Based on pre-publicity for the film, people were expecting Tai Chi Man to have super human powers like Spider Man, Iron Man or the Green Hornet to save the world. However, the movie is based on a descendent of Lingkong Tai Ji Chen Linhu that is led astray to participate in underground black boxing and his cooperation with the police to shut down the operation. While the story is simple with dramatic conflict and suspense. there is nothing chivalrous about the behavior of tai Chi Xia leaving the fans unsatisfied. One media colleague described it as going back to martial arts films of 10 years ago. Did you underestimate the appreciation of Chinese fans?
Keanu Reeves: The film is just a simple story about a monster (Donaka) in modern society with martial roots. I spent a lot of time learning the Chinese martial arts culture, and my screenwriter in Hollywood is also very famous. Batman and Spiderman are Hollywood superheroes. Tai Chi Man is a story based on pure Chinese background, so he can not become a super hero. His goal is to preserve the tradition in modern society, doing what he thinks is right within his available means.
Reporter: Hollywood could not create a colorful visual?The Tai Chi Man production team was very strong with martial arts choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping, director of photography Elliot Davis (Iron Lady), art director from Japan (Kill Bill) and new actor Chen Hu. We were looking forward to the film having a visual impact. In nearly two hours all we see is a man who loves fighting.
The problem is that Chinese kung fu is real and intense but it does not dazzle. Fans expected to see action like in The Matrix. Fans have visual fatigue from all the fighting and say that Reeves loves to fight.
In addition, having Chen Hu as the leading man is a problem. Although he is a martial arts expert, his performance will be criticized . During the entire film, he was expressionless and he was stiff in delivering his lines. The audience will be disappointed because as the villain Reeves does not have much screen time or no amazing scenes.
Keanu Reeves: The concept comes from traditional tai chi. While we added a lot of fictional elements, I did not want it to turn into a special type of martial arts. I wanted to make a different kind of film. We kept the essence of Tai Chi, for example, its spirt, its action, it’s pure.