Keanu Reeves’ martial arts movie Man of Tai Chi marked a high point for China-US co-productions – yet bombed at the box office
- The film tells the story of a tai chi expert who sells his soul to win at an underground fight club
- Keanu Reeves made his directorial debut with this bilingual Chinese-American co-production
Keanu Reeves’ directorial debut could have been a critical disaster. A bilingual martial arts movie set in mainland China and Hong Kong, it sounds, at best, like an ego trip and at worst like cultural appropriation.
Sleekly made and sharply choreographed, the film follows a Chinese tai chi expert (Tiger Chen, playing a version of himself) through the ranks of an underground fight club run by a shady Hong Kong businessman (Reeves). This involves him effectively selling his soul – watch for the 666 number plate on a henchman’s car – by compromising the integrity of his fighting style to advance through the contest.
At one point in Man of Tai Chi, Karen Mok Man-wai’s cop asks why a millionaire would risk everything to run an illegal martial arts tournament. The same could be asked of Reeves’ decision to make the film in the first place, but then he has always taken his own route. Who else would follow Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure with My Own Private Idaho, an LGBT drama based on Shakespeare’s Henry IV, or write a grown-up picture book on the philosophy of suffering called Ode to Happiness?
Man of Tai Chi may not tread new ground, but it’s made with care and respect, and has its director’s fingerprints all over it – not something you usually see in productions spread across continents.