Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Once Upon a Time in China and America Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 25, 2020

Note: This film is available as part of Once Upon a Time in China Trilogy.

The Once Upon a Time in China franchise is regularly cited as having kickstarted the weirdly dormant martial arts film genre in the Asian market, but it’s also arguable that the series helped to foster another element of “eastern” cinema that is not necessarily relegated only to China (Korean films also come to mind in this regard): a kind of “rah rah” jingoism that seeks to exploit national identity while also perhaps hinting, none too subliminally at times, that the “natives” (Chinese or otherwise) may be just a bit smarter than some of the interlopers. Once Upon a Time in China appeared in 1991, helping to catapult Jet Li to superstar status, and continuing an even by then decades long tradition of crafting entertainments around the adventures (typically “fictionalized” if not outright fiction) of real life Chinese martial arts master and folk medicine healer Wong Fei-hung. Wong lived from around 1847 to 1925, but it didn’t take long for a rather gargantuan mythos to be built up around the character, so much so that by the late forties, Wong was an immensely popular character in Hong Kong films. Kwan Tak-hing made a veritable career out of playing Wong, appearing in some 70 films about the character, and there are several rather well remembered films about Wong that came out as Kwan was winding down from playing Wong (incredibly, the actor continued the role from the 1940s to the 1980s, earning a place in the Guinness Book of World Records in the process). These include the Shaw Brothers’ Challenge of the Masters, Drunken Master with Jackie Chan, and the relatively recent Rise of the Legend. The Once Upon a Time in China films offer some typical martial arts frenzies, but the films are also quite notable for how they portray a nascent nation defending itself from outside influences, and creating its own identity in the process.

Since it's featured rather prominently in the trailer for Tone-Deaf , it's not really a spoiler to divulge that the film has a very funny moment during its climax when the film's damsel in distress is apparently about to be pummeled to death with a small Native American hatchet by the film's mad killer, at which point the woman asks the would be murderer pointedly, "Is that a tomahawk? Textbook cultural appropriation, man!" Something rather similar, and in fact identical given some of the weapons on display, could be said about the resolutely silly Once Upon a Time in China and America.

In my Rise of the Legend Blu-ray review, I stated that I found it kind of ironic that the trailers on that disc were for the Ip Man films, since both that franchise and the many films about Wong have (shall we say) stretched the truth at times, at least partly due to the fact that there are so darned many films that new stories need to be concocted. In that regard, this patently ridiculous effort which sees Wong traveling to America, quickly developing that frequent cinematic device of amnesia after getting whacked on the head, and then "joining" some Native Americans, replete with war paint on the face and other accoutrements that may in fact strike more the politically correct inclined as being cultural appropriation, even if at least some of this buffoonery is obviously being played for laughs.

And what probably saves this film is that it often plays like a live action cartoon. There is once again a bit of cogent commentary on Chinese characters dealing with challenges from the West, though in this case, since the film takes place in the American West, it's a completely different dynamic, since the Chinese in this case are the ostensible "outsiders". It's maybe just a little odd that this was the film Jet Li decided to make his return to playing Wong Fei-hung in, after a "vacation" of several years where Vincent Zhao took over the role. That said, it's probably Li's charisma which helps this film to elide some of its sillier aspects.

Once Upon a Time in China and America Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Once Upon a Time in China and America is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka! Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. As mentioned in the reviews of the previous entries in this series, Eureka! only provided check discs and so I'm not privy to any verbiage that may be in insert booklets, but in this case their website isn't very helpful, either. The site states that the first three films were culled from new 4K restorations, but only states that this entry is in "HD", while Fortune Star is evidently on record stating that this stems from a 2K remaster. This transfer offers a really nicely natural looking palette, one which is admittedly not as generally colorful as Once Upon a Time in China III Blu- ray review, but one which still pops with considerable authenticity in a lot of the outdoor material in this film. Director Sammo Hung doesn't tend to offer as many stylistic quirks as Tsui Hark did in the first three films, but that may actually redound to the benefit of general and especially fine detail levels, since a more stationary camera, often framed for midrange and close-up shots, can offer more "breathing room" to actually take in everything. While things are in no way "waxy" here, this has a somewhat processed look that is a bit processed and video-like at times. Again, I'm constrained by how the site lets us score things, but I'd probably pump this up to a 3.75 if I were able to.

Once Upon a Time in China and America Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Once Upon a Time in China and America follows its immediate predecessor's audio options on Blu-ray by offering Cantonese LPCM Mono, Mandarin LPCM 2.0, and English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks. This was my favorite of all the surround tracks in this set, and it's helped somewhat by the fact that there's so much English being spoken (even the Chinese language tracks feature English at times). The wild west setting offers good opportunities for nicely placed ambient environmental effects, and some of the interesting scoring in this film also resides regularly in the surround channels. The Cantonese and Mandarin tracks do offer a few variances aside from language. A lot of the sound effects are generally more reverberent in the stereo track (listen, for example, to the horses galloping early in the film, toggling between the tracks, for an idea of some of the differences that can be heard). Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly throughout all three presentations.

Once Upon a Time in China and America Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Once Upon a Time in China and America (HD; 25:05) is an enjoyable archival featurette that has a lot of behind the scenes footage and some interesting interviews. Some of this is unfortunately not subtitled in English.


• Theatrical Trailer #1 (HD; 3:23)


• Theatrical Trailer #2 (HD; 3:50)

Eureka! only provided check discs for the purposes of this review, and so I don't have access to any packaging or non disc swag. Eureka!'s website indicates this is another rather handsomely packaged release with insert booklets and exclusive essays.

Once Upon a Time in China and America Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I've mentioned in some other reviews that the heirs and assigns of notable figures like Wong Fei-hung and/or Ip Man had better be receiving some substantial licensing fees for these filmmakers' often fanciful accounts of their famed ancestors' supposed adventures. Once Upon a Time in China and America is so patently silly on its (warpainted) face that it's hard to take any of it seriously, but that may at least also prevent it from seeming overly objectionable even to the so-called "PC police". Technical merits are solid for those considering a purchase.