I’ve railed before about the over-abundance of period martial arts films and the lack of their modern-day counterparts especially when it comes to truly talented screen fighters like Donnie Yen and Jet Li. It looks like that drought is coming to an end though thanks to the recent announcement that Yen has wrapped production on a film called Special Identity. And now the news gets even better.
Li is in post-production on Badges of Fury from director Wang Zi Ming, and the icing on the ass-kickery-flavored cake is that he’s joined by Wu Jing and Collin Chou in the tale of detectives hot on the trail of a serial killer. Like Yen and even Jackie Chan, Li has been on a period kick making movies set in long ago times celebrating Chinese history and whatnot. Kiss of the Dragon and Danny the Dog (aka Unleashed) are his last really good ones, but they’re eight to twelve years old.
Li and Chou have faced off before in The Bodyguard from Beijing, and while it featured some wire work the final fight between them is pretty sweet. (Check it out here.) Equally impressive are Wu’s fight skills on display most notably in the phenomenal alley fight against Yen in SPL. (Watch it here.)
The plot line for Badges of Fury (previously known as The One Cop) is as follows:
When a spate of eerie murders erupts across HK two troublemaking cops are assigned to the case. Young maverick WANG and grizzled vet HUANG who is fed up with his reckless younger partner always landing them in hot water. Reaching a dead end after discovering all the victims were former boyfriends of aspiring starlet LIU, the detectives must play a deadly game. One of them must go undercover as Liu’s lover to lure the killer out.“
Li will obviously play Danny Glover while Wu takes on the maverick Mel Gibson role. If I had to take a stab at what happens I’m going to guess that Wu goes undercover, gets killed in a wicked fight with Chou and is then avenged by Li in an even more awesome brawl. If that ends up being the case then I apologize for spoiling it…
But even if that’s exactly what happens you and I will still be thrilled to see these guys kicking ass in the present day again.
Source: Twitch