Fist of Legend is a remake of 1972s Fist of Fury starring the late, great Bruce Lee. 1994s reboot Legend was produced by its star Jet Li, directed by Gordon Chan, and, crucially, choreographed by Yuen Woo-Ping. The film takes place in 1937 during the second Sino-Japanese war. A Chinese student named Chen Zhen is studying at Kyoto University when he receives word that his master has been killed by a Japanese martial artist. Distraught and royally pissed off, he sets off for his old school in Shanghai, which at the time was no longer under the control of the British Empire, but the Japanese. Things come to a head when Chen finally figures out that the shady General Fujita of the Imperial Japanese Army is the man behind his late masters death, and they engage in an lengthy battle that closely resembles Neos epic dojo sparring match with Morpheus and it should, because its the same fight. The Wachowskis brought in Yuen Woo-Peng after seeing his work on Fist of Legend, and it would have been one of the easiest gigs the Chinese martial arts wizard has ever had, seeing as they seemed to simply reuse many of the exact same sequences in The Matrix. At times you could CGI a black trench coat and sunglasses combo onto Jet Li, drop a murky, dystopian city behind him good measure and you might not be able to tell the difference.
