Kung Fu League | Blu-ray & DVD (Well Go USA)
RELEASE DATE: September 17, 2019
On September 17th, 2019, Well Go USA will be releasing the Blu-ray & DVD for Kung Fu League (aka Kung Fu Alliance), an all-star martial arts actioner from veteran Hong Kong director/writer Jeff Lau (Thunder Cops 2, Treasure Hunt).
Considering the project’s impressive line up and the respective characters they’re playing, Kung Fu League is essentially “The Expendables of kung fu legends and myths.”
Vincent Zhao will once again portray Wong Fei Hung, as he did in Once Upon a Time in China IV-V and the 1996 TV Wong Fei Hung Series; Dennis To will once again portray Ip Man, as he did in The Legend is Born – Ip Man; frequent “Bruce Lee” actor, Danny Chan, will portray Chen Zhen (made famous by Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury); and Andy On will portray Huo Yuan Jia (previously portrayed by Jet Li in Fearless).
Kung Fu League also stars Bruce Leung (Kung Fu Hustle), Lam Tze Chung (Shaolin Soccer), Leung Kar Yan (Shanghai 13) and recording artist, Zhang Yao.
Pre-order Kung Fu League from Amazon.com today!
A-list characters played by B-list names (but at least there’s no Eddie Peng), this one should be interesting. More than Lau being the director though, I’m more interested to see who’ll be doing the fight choreography.
Xiong Xin Xin will be handling the action.
Well, I only hope that it’s better than his work on ‘Lady Bloodfight’, both in the choreography itself and the editing of it.
Redbox it if you can and absolutly have to see it… I bought the chinese bluray and sold it the same damn day. Absolutly terrible movie and it’s nothing like what it seem to be… Hardly any fight scenes, set more in present time then the time they lived in and it more or less just about those 4 guys helping another guy get laid…
Yeah, that sums it up. WellGo has to be kidding with that box cover art and tag line.. It’s like Asylum Pictures aping “Avengers Assemble!”
I get that it was a comedy and not meant to be taken seriously as an action film, but the marketing was very dishonest. Even as a comedy it failed.
So we have two historical figures who were alive at almost entirely different times (Huo Yuan Jia died in 1910 – when Yip Man was 17 years old) teaming up with an entirely fictional character. Huh? This is going to be one interesting screenplay…!
Very true, although considering Donnie Yen’s portrayal of Ip Man hasn’t changed in the slightest over a trilogy that spans 20+ years, maybe Dennis To is supposed to be a 17 year old Ip Man after all? 😛
The movie is basically THE DRAGON LIVES (The movie with Bruce Leung, as Bruce, co-starring with James Bond, Clint Eastwood, etc) lol
One of the first examples of ‘Asian washing’. 🙂
That honestly occurred to me; I wouldn’t be surprised if Dennis To is supposed to be playing a character who is much younger than he is (by about 20 years!).
Sounds like a blast, sign me up!
Pretty cool stuff in the trailer. A bit more comedic than I would have liked, but I’m hoping this turns out well.
It looks like the characters have been transported into modern times. I wonder how prevalent the “fish out of water” jokes will be.
This looks even better than Lau’s last movie, ‘Soccer Killer’….sign me up!
Aaaaanhhhh!!! IMDb linked to two reviews which give terrible reports.
They both say that the four leads aren’t leads at all, and are sidelined in favor of pop star Ashin, who portrays a whining, unlikable nerd.
It’s also reported that the action is short and spread out far, and that we can forget about seeing the heroes dominate. All this combined with cheap gay jokes and other childish humor is very crushing to read about.
The only good news is that Unity of Heroes got a positive reception at FantAsia.
Two words: Jeff Lau 🙂
The guy peaked with ‘Treasure Hunt’.
Haha! I know the guy isn’t an auteur, but I figured he was the equivalent to Simon West where he makes something decent once in a while!
He wrote So Close!
I watched Kung Fu League at a friend’s house. I told him and the others that it’s a comedy first and foremost, and we all tried to keep an open mind about it.
The movie is awful. Just because it’s Mo Lei Tau, doesn’t mean it had to be annoying and irritating. It simply wasn’t funny, and the cast embarrassed themselves with this heap.
Ashin is essentially a loser who draws fan fiction, and he wishes the 4 heroes into the modern world so they can help him get laid. They don’t teach him anything, and the movie keeps going downhill.
There’s a tiny amount of funny jokes such as a parody of The Grandmaster, and when the 4 end up on a film set, but there’s a lot of missed opportunities with the “fish out of water” jokes.
What made Last Hero in China work was that while everything around him is silly, Jet Li was serious through most of it, which made the proceedings funny. The Fong Sai Yuk movies worked because the slapstick comedy and action were well balanced out. None of that is here.
The four heroes in the movie act like complete goofballs, and it’s just pathetic. They may as well have been wearing clown suits and shitting in the streets with the way they were trying to be funny.
Regardless of how other film fans feel about Jeff Lau, he has and is capable of doing good work, and this isn’t it. My friends and I were glad to have Nightshooters on hand to wash away the taste of this filth.
Oh man. I know this has been getting ripped apart by just about anyone who’s seen it, but even so, I was still planning to check it out based on the small hope that the hammerings were from reviewers who didn’t “get” the Jeff Lau style of movie making.
Having read the Hernandez breakdown though, I’ll give it a miss. I think we’re on the same page when it comes to the appreciation of Lau’s unruly style (I won’t say genius), so if this was intolerable even for one of his fans, then perhaps I should save the 90 mins of torture for the next Nevsky flick.
Despite appearances to the contrary, I don’t take pleasure in delivering the bad news of a film. If it means anything, the movie is slightly better than anything the Russian fuckwad can do.
Our favorite, Mike Leeder has said nice things about Kung Fu League, but I guess I failed him for not noticing those nice things.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, having heard the evidence presented before me, i will stand my ground and say I enjoyed Kung Fu Big League, i love a bit of mo lei tau madness, i wasn’t expecting an epic kung fu movie, and having worked with both Vincent Zhao and Andy On on various projects i really enjoyed seeing them have some fun, and really enjoyed Dennis To’s take and hope he does more comedy….its a mo lei tau nonsensical action comedy and maybe a lot of the humour doesn’t translate internationally, but then again i have a soft spot for Jeff Lau’s work on Nocturnal Demon and Eagle Shooting Heroes……
I will say that i enjoyed Kung Fu Big League much more than either Unity of Heroes 1 & 2, those i was expecting more from….although the new Fearless series does have me hoping we get the Vincent Zhao project we’ve been waiting for!
Oh no! I was hoping I would like the Unity of Heroes movies. Especially since it looked like part 2 upped the ante.
I wish I liked Kung Fu League, but it’s just a reminder that movies are always taking flak from audiences who just “don’t get it.”
A much better Jeff Lau/Vincent Zhao collaboration is Mahjong Dragon from 1997. It’s definitely got Mo Lei Tau written all over it, but the proceedings were more tolerable and even Zhao had a pretty good balance of being funny and serious.
It also features some decent fight scenes by Corey Yuen including a showdown between Zhao and Ken Lo where they have to stay balanced on a stack of crates.
Mahjong Dragon is such an overlooked movie, the same company also started shooting the first movie that saw Donnie Yen play Ip Man while Stephen Chow played Bruce Lee, but company imploded as shooting began…they also did a mad fun Black Rose movie with a great title sequence and Donnie cameo’ing too
But yes Mahjong Dragon is great fun, Vincent Zhao in an afro wig, Josephine Siao in fine form and Ken Low kicking ass at his best outside of Drunken master 2
Now i do like my Mo Lei Tau and i did enjoy Kung Fu Big League, maybe its coz i wasn’t expecting that much, but it cheered me up after a mad day on set
It’s no Nocturnal Demon, but what is?
Oh, Nocturnal Demon! I checked it out based on brns.com’s 8.5 review, but I wasn’t the audience for it. Moon Lee’s fights were too short, and the comedy didn’t “grab” me.
Mo Lei Tau seems hard to pull off. Some movies do it really well while others don’t or they’re made for a specific audience. One of the sad truths about comedy is that it’s always taking shots from people who don’t get the joke.