Keanu Reeves' directional debut is an expertly choreographed martial arts feature that will delight the genre fans with its old-school, action-packed premise but it also features a highly predictable plot, clichéd characters & near absence of genuine, believable emotions that ultimately prevents it from leaving a memorable imprint.Man of Tai Chi tells the story of a young martial artist who is gifted in Tai Chi skills but is impatient & rebellious when it comes to the philosophical aspects of his style. Things are set in motion when he is invited to join a highly lucrative underworld fight club for easy money and eventually finds out the sinister intent behind its existence.Directed by Keanu Reeves, the film marks his first stint behind the camera and he does a neat job at it, for his debut effort in the director's chair is simple, grounded, entertaining & well aware of its limitations. The action choreography is excellent & benefits a lot from its kinetic camera-work while all its events unfold at a brisk pace.The story is lazily scripted, for it could've delved deeper into the world of illegal fighting operations & its equally perverse audience but refuses to look beneath the surface. The fight scenes are good yet they fail to stimulate on an emotional level. Performances are mediocre, at times laughable and the generic background score doesn't help either.On an overall scale, Man of Tai Chi begins Keanu Reeves' directional career on a quiet note and is best enjoyed when expectations are thrown out the window. Reeves in a negative role is quite fun to watch despite his hollow, cringeworthy expressions while the movie as a whole chooses to stay within its confines by never aiming for a shot at greatness. In short, there is nothing special about it.

In the 80's, Martial Arts movies where a lot more dominant in the market. It was mainly really good martial artists with poor acting skills.Then - slowly - came the choreographers and the CGI dudes and made every actor a martial artists. The acting got better, the fighting got worse.In Man of Tai Chi, we're back. There's a lot of respect for the martial arts in this movie. When there's a Tae-Kwon-Do fighter, he uses Tae-kwon-do moves. All fighters, except Keanu, knows their stuff.I wanted to see more of Iko Uwais (from The Raid), and I wanted to see less of Keanu, but it's still a solid 9 judged purely as a martial arts film.Would love to see Keanu Reeves diving into this and become the next John Woo.

WOW! Where to begin. Could the story have been a little better? Sure it could've. This is a martial arts film. With that being said, it was pretty awesome. Being a fan of martial arts films, of course I enjoyed this, but not just because it's a martial arts film. It's because compared to other films of this nature, this one has some pretty amazing fight scenes that, in my opinion, rival those of "Bloodsport". This is why I felt it was necessary to give this film an eight star rating. Keanu is a bonus, like icing on a cake. On the other hand, if you're not a fan of martial arts movies, this is definitely not for you. As stated above, the story is slightly lacking compared to great movies of other genres. However, if you compare this film to other martial arts films, the story is better than average. That's why I believe that if you're a fan of martial arts films, DO NOT PASS THIS ONE UP. It was refreshing to see fight scenes of this quality again. Enjoy

Man of Tai Chi is a very enjoyable movie, but it may not be for everyone. The plot and characters are fairly straight forward, and the fight scenes are fairly grounded, so they won't be too exciting if you're in the mood for a crazy, physics breaking,brawl movie, however this compliments the tone of the movie rather nicely. This is a subtle movie, and it has a lot of heart, the action sequences focus less on trying to be big and explosive and more on showing a brutal, fairly realistic struggle that also sheds light on the mental state of the main character, in other words. The fights in this movie are not as flashy and stylized as other movies, this however did not detract from my enjoyment, because of the more tooth and nails style of the fights, it made them feel more like a struggle to survive than a choreographed martial arts show. As for the story, it is much more personal than you'd expect, instead of being focused on crime and criminals, which are certainly big elements of this movie, it's more about the main character's inner struggle about who he wants to be and how he wants to win his battles. This type of story wouldn't work without good actors. The performances are not award worthy, but they are enjoyable and you can't help but be excited to see what the characters do next. This is a straightforward, grounded fighting movie, with a personal story and good characters, not as stylized as other martial arts movies, but this fact adds to its tone and story, all in all, a well done, entertaining movie with an endearing message.