The above just about sums it up: if you dig the film's sense of humour, you'll enjoy it so much more. Alas, most western viewers probably won't, so will brand its uniqueness simply as a "mess".To be fair, this is a very "seen it all before" story, but with warp-speed cuts, great use of SFX, above par wire-fu and superb cinematography, the flick is elevated way beyond its humble plot. I think that when film fans talk about "vision", they mean something like what the director managed to convey on screen in this very film.So, what's it all about?A kid with the mark of a born kung fu legend is exploited into fighting for a cult, until a doctor warns how such violence will lead to his death and that he needs to learn the passive art of tai chi in order to live a happy life... as opposed to plain dying. Naturally then, our somewhat dim-witted lead ventures off to Chen village to learn, only to be constantly turned away, as the art isn't taught to outsiders. And on it goes...With eye-candy galore, this film truly caters for men! I mean: a fast-paced kung fu flick full of gorgeous women? Yep, Tai Chi Zero ticks all the boxes, but again, it's that sense of humour that'll make or break the film for you, and for me, despite all its positives, there was only so much enjoyment from this that I could get.It seems obvious, but I'll nutshell anyway: others will call Tai Chi Zero "dumb" or "awesome", but the only real way to determine if you'll enjoy this film for yourself, is to watch it.

When I watch a kung-fu movie I'm looking for some simple elements. Good fight scenes, entertaining characters, a hero to cheer for and a villain to hate. Ultimately, a movie that takes me out of reality a little bit.The "hero" of the movie starts off as the mindless unstoppable killing machine who is the secret weapon of the cultist army. But then we get some backstory involving his mother and his tragic past and suddenly he is just a simple boy who is kind of cute and naive in a charming way? It's a strange shift. He is told he needs to learn Chen style kung-fu to realign his energy flow or he will die. His army and master are killed so he is free and so he travels to Chen village.The "villain" in this movie was way too easy to empathize with. The small village we are supposed to be rooting for as they are bullied by the westerners just comes across as elitist and snobby. They treat the "villain" as an outsider because of his family origins even though he lived there his whole life, and even bully him with the kung-fu they refuse to teach to him or any "outsiders" They also refuse to teach our "hero" and actually try to beat him up many times.We could probably easily respect their tradition of not teaching outsiders but no screen time is given to developing or explaining that tradition so it just seems cruel.The movie escalates into a tragedy which will draw the attention of the foreign soldiers and most likely lead to the destruction of the village, and it's all just too GRAY. In kung-fu movies I like things black and white, good and evil, right and wrong... this movie left me unsure of who to even care about or who to root for.The production value is high, so the movie looks good, visually. The fight scenes are mediocre and too few, with too many effects that just don't add to the experience they way they are supposed to. There are even cartoonish freeze frames and game-like text (reminiscent of Scott Pilgrim) which would make this movie seem like pure entertainment, but it keeps bogging itself back down in muddy reality by balancing the good and bad of each character.The ending is a cliffhanger, leaving everything mostly unresolved.In the end, its the story which is too much like the gray of real life, its the lack of clearly defined characters who I can easily love and hate, which kills this movie for me. Maybe real life is like that, but if I wanted to feel the complex tragedy of the human condition I wouldn't be watching a kung-fu movie.I just don't know what this movie wanted to be, and I get the feeling the director didn't either.

this movie is another coffin nail of how Chinese movies have already past the point of no return unsalvageable terminal disease. this movie has wasted lot of money on nothing but messy childish soul-less hollow gimmicks. the screenplay was also a milestone of the worst of worst Chinese screenplay writers who got the incurable brain damage from reading too many absurd comic books and playing too many ridiculous video games. viewers who praised this movie as an epic masterpiece should also have their heads thoroughly checked, but i doubt MRI could find how their brains were damaged since those comic books and video games are like untraceable virus. this movie also proved that the failure of the Chinese education system which only created copycatting self-claimed geniuses like guys eating too much American junk food after endless garbage-in, garbage-out digestion. all kinds of crap to these people are like most tasteful cuisines.oh my god, what a mess of this movie has created. i don't even have appropriate words to describe how disgusting this movie is. i always wonder why those rich people would invest money on such pure garbage. by ridiculing one of the legendary Chinese martial arts masters is on the par of the Chinese communist party who claimed itself was the sole party fighting the Japanese invasion. this movie is so disgusting that i don't even know how to review it with proper words. god forgive me.

KUNG-FU movies are a dime a dozen, what more if they are about a callow youth wanting to study it under a master and then getting a chance to impress the master's pretty daughter. Even having Sammo Hung choreographing the action scenes will have little effect.There's a little commentary in Tai Chi 0 (Tai Chi Zero) about the dangers of aping decadent Western culture and how Chinese ingenuity can resist any white invasion. By this time, however, viewers would have lost interest in the narrative and, like me, would have been fighting to stay awake.Director Stephen Fung's story about Yang Lu Chan, the founder of tai chi, uses Japanese animation and video games to up the movie's ante, but maybe he just wasn't too confident in the flick.At the start, viewers are introduced to Lu Chan (2008 wushu champion Yuan Xiaochao, which is proudly announced on the screen). He's a tiger in battle because he has a horn-like stump on his head that can be hit to escalate his anger and increase his fighting prowess, just like the Incredible Hulk. But his downtime is also considerable. .There's a flashback using black-and-white silent movies to describe his birth and childhood, including showing how far is mother (former soft porn star Shu Qi) would go to raise him.In battle, his team is cut to pieces. So he heads for the mountains to learn a special kind of kung fu from Master Chen of the Chen Village, but this village is finicky because it won't teach it to outsiders.Lu Chan is at his wits' end and fights villagers to show them his worth. These include Master Chen's pretty daughter Yu Niang (Angelababy). But he's beaten back at every step, until a labourer (Tony Leung) tells him to mimic the villagers' kung fu and use it against them.Yu Niang's fiancé is Zi Jing (Eddie Peng), who is at odds with the culture of his country with his British clothing and snobby demeanour. He wants to build a railroad that will take it across the village, but this is met by fierce resistance from the villagers.So he calls in the artillery, or a monstrous metallic ogre that's part tractor and part train. I don't know why but I thought about the metallic steam-powered spider in the desert in Wild Wild West (1999).Lu Chan and Yu Niang conspire to bring the machine to a grinding halt, but not before taking down a regiment of hopelessly dressed white soldiers and a huge white guy.A romantic subplot has Zi Jing working with a white woman whom he met in London. Her last moment on earth is to hear him tell her that he loves her, all within earshot of Yu Niang. Zi Jing should not mix business and pleasure.The movie then ends abruptly, either living viewers unsatisfied or glad the movie ended.