Film

Once Upon a Time in China

Name: Once Upon a Time in China
Genre: Action, Drama
Released: 1991
Cast: Jet Li, Yuen Biao, Jacky Cheung Hok-Yau, Rosamund Kwan Chi-Lam, Kent Cheng Jak-Si

Martial arts action

A gorgeously staged folk-hero myth wearing an action film's clothes: Jet Li's Wong Fei-hung defends Canton against gunboats, opium and colonial swagger using fists, wirework, and enormous style. Tsui Hark choreographs it like a musical of violence — bamboo-scaffold brawls, group formations, nationalist fervour, and a surprising streak of comedy. For anyone who wants their kung fu operatic, political, and ridiculously fun.

TMDb rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love period martial arts built on sly comedy, rich set-pieces and a hero who fights for a city's dignity rather than just for pride.

Skip it if you want nonstop fighting, since the kicks and fists arrive between long stretches of talk about politics, family and foreign invaders, and the runtime can feel loose.

What it asks of you: Two hours and thirteen minutes, with comedy, political unrest and bursts of brisk acrobatic violence shuffling past, so settle in rather than channel-surf.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Fist of Legend1994

Jet Li plays a student avenging his master against contemptuous foreign fighters — same fury at colonial arrogance, but stripped of wires, faster, meaner, and often cited as the decade's finest pure martial-arts choreography.

But Grittier and colder than Wong Fei-hung's warmth — less myth and humour, more clinical brutality.

Iron Monkey1993

A gleeful prequel-in-spirit to the Wong Fei-hung legend, with young Fei-hung himself as a supporting character, and Yuen Woo-ping's airborne, gravity-mocking action at its most joyous.

But Thinner plot and broader comedy — pure pleasure but with less ambition than Tsui Hark's film.

Drunken Master1978

Jackie Chan's breakout as a young, reckless Wong Fei-hung, decades before Li's version — slapstick, brutal training sequences, and the drunken-boxing style that made him a star.

But Rougher production values and a much goofier tone; this is comedy first, myth second.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Once Upon a Time in China

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Once Upon a Time in the West1968

Both ask whether an old way of fighting can survive the arrival of guns and outside money — Tsui Hark just answers with kung fu instead of a six-shooter.

Leone's operatic Western tells the same story in a different hat: old codes of honour crushed by railroads, guns and foreign capital, at epic, unhurried scale with Morricone's score doing half the work.

But Nearly three hours of slow-burn silence and stares; if you came for fists, the violence here is all gunpowder.

The Grandmaster2013

Wong Kar-wai's Ip Man biography treats kung fu as memory and heartbreak rather than spectacle — same turbulent China, same threatened schools, slowed into something achingly beautiful.

But Fragmented and melancholic, with fewer fights than the trailer promised — a mood piece, not an actioner.

Hero2002

Zhang Yimou's wuxia epic trades Canton's alleyways for imperial China and turns every duel into a colour-coded painting — gorgeous, mythic, and unafraid of grand political ideas.

But Cooler and more abstract than Tsui Hark's earthy chaos; some find its symmetry a little airless.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon2000

The wuxia film that introduced most Western audiences to the genre — tragic romance, treetop swordplay, and a sense of honour and loss that lingers long after the fights end.

But Elegant and mournful rather than rowdy; if you wanted more Fei-hung swagger, this is quieter company.

Ip Man2008

Donnie Yen's take on another real Cantonese kung fu legend defending his community against foreign brutality — the direct spiritual cousin of Wong Fei-hung's story, told with brutal efficiency.

But More nationalist and single-minded, with less of Tsui Hark's playfulness or comic relief.

The Legend of Drunken Master1994

Jackie Chan's late, great return to Wong Fei-hung, smashing colonial art thieves through a glass factory — pure stunt-comedy joy with an anti-imperial backbone.

But Broader and sillier than Li's version; treat it as a companion piece, not an equivalent.

Kung Fu Hustle2004

Stephen Chow's cartoonish tribute to the whole genre, gleefully quoting Wong Fei-hung-style heroics while turning the volume up to absurd — the myth played as slapstick opera.

But So broadly comic it barely resembles the earnest original spirit; pure silliness, little pathos.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin1978

Wong Fei-hung's school and its rituals descend directly from this earlier temple-and-discipline template — same DNA, over a decade before Tsui Hark polished it into myth.

The Shaw Brothers classic that invented the training-hall mythology Tsui Hark is riffing on — rougher, slower, and utterly sincere about discipline itself as a form of resistance.

But Dated effects and a much plainer visual style; this is the ancestor, not the remaster.