Abhimanyu Das has reviewed Man of Tai Chi for The Sunday Guardian. Here are a few of the money quotes:
From the first frames of Man of Tai Chi — an old school martial arts melodrama with a 21st century coat of paint — it’s clear that Reeves has probably dreamed of making this for years. The entire project smacks of a deep fondness for and knowledge of those trippy, marvellous old Shaw Brothers/Golden Harvest kung fu movies, lovingly recasting their tropes for a brave new world of media saturation and trans-national flows.
It’s all quite ridiculously fun. Every element of the plot is pure wuxia archetype, right down to the cartoonishly evil foreign millionaire/businessman. They are, however, given sly little twists and updates here and there.
Fighting aside, Reeves himself is the greatest performative delight in a cast filled out with Hong Kong cinema icons like Simon Yam and Karen Mok
I had as much fun watching Man of Tai Chi as Reeves clearly had making it. That was no accident. It’s the result of Reeves and company’s hard work, creative instincts and abiding affection for cinematic tradition…
Note: Reviews right through the TIFF bashed the hell out of the film. After it screened at the Fantastic Fest in September, the reviews turned positive for the most part. Makes you wonder if the critics covering TIFF and the previous film events even bothered to watch the film or just chose, in a cleaned up version of what my kiddo would say, pulled crap out of their butts based on their prejudices about Keanu Reeves and called it a review. The majority of the reviewers that actually watched Man of Tai Chi found some positives in it – better late that never.