ACCORDING TO Jet Li Lianjie, there are two kinds of movies. There's the commercial blockbuster, that meticulously calculated vehicle with cynical casting decisions and million-dollar publicity strategies to 'open markets around the world'. Then there's what he describes as the 'I don't care' movie: 'It's when the filmmakers say, 'I only want to talk about my own story, my beliefs - I'm not concerned whether you accept it or not',' Li says. 'Like Mel Gibson, a friend of mine, with his film about Jesus. He doesn't care what other people think, because it's his belief. It's a film in which you could see emotions and feelings - he's not cheating you out of your money.'
Given Li's fervour about Fearless - his new film about the life of early 20th-century martial arts master Huo Yuanjia - Li obviously sees it as his own Passion of the Christ. Given the similarities between the two films, Li's confession that he was inspired by Gibson isn't surprising. Both movies are epics through which the filmmakers seek to impose their ethos on the world: Gibson channels his conservative religious values into Passion, and Li uses Fearless to advocate a Chinese cultural renaissance, in which morality and virtue - rather than physical or economic brawn - lead the way.
In Fearless, Huo's life is transformed into a parable, mirroring what the Chinese masses have experienced in the past century. In a heavily fictionalised account of a short life, Huo secures his skills and standing after a spiritual rebirth, when he pledges to trade in a life of senseless violence for one ruled by ethical martial arts. It's preceded by a (fictional) self-imposed exile, brought about by the death of his mother and daughter, killed by an avenging rival after one hubristic fight too many.
'Huo is the first person [in the history of Chinese martial arts] who spread the idea that you don't have to triumph over others in order to prove yourself - that it's already enough for you not to rest on your laurels and improve yourself all the time,' Li says. 'When a nation was lagging behind in terms of development - like China a century ago, when the country could be carved up by foreign powers - the people might just need a powerful figure to come out and beat the hell out of people who call the Chinese 'the sick men of Asia'.
'That's what Bruce Lee was about. It's about individual heroism. Now that China is getting stronger we need to step back and think whether we still need all that. When someone calls you a 'sick man of Asia', should we just beat the daylights out of him? I don't think it's the proper way of manifesting our national spirit - after all, if I'm not sick he could call me all the names he wants. It doesn't hurt.'
Fearless is no Fist of Fury. Some of the latter's nationalist iconography remains: there are the manipulating foreign attaches plotting Huo's downfall over a game of cards in a smoky lounge, and Huo's victories over monstrous, villainous foreigners smack of jingoism. This time round, however, the hero never lands the deadly coup de grace - the fights end with the shamed challengers leaving the ring physically intact, with only their pride damaged.