Superhero Media: Legend of the Fist - The Return of Chen Zhen

As much as I enjoyed this film, I really cannot recommend it on the basis that it requires quite a great deal of very specific fore-knowlege to understand. It is only because I just happen to have a good grounding in Chinese history, the Sino-Japanese War, Shanghai culture, superheroes and Wuxia that I was able to tell what was happening at any given point. A group of Chinese volunteers during the Great War lose one of their number, leading the great revolutionary Chen Zhen to adopt a new identity to return to Shanghai and combat the Japanese slowly taking over his country. Lacking a unified military and identity, the Chinese are losing out to the Japanese invaders, having to play along in public while running an underground resistance. Please note that essentially none of this is actually spelled out, but is there if you know what to look for. During the attempted assassination of the child of a Chinese General, Chen Zhen dons a Kato costume from a nearby cinema display and leaps into battle as "The Masked Warrior". 

For those who don't know, The Green Hornet series was marketed around Kato in Asia, especially the 1960s version starring Bruce Lee, with Green Hornet himself being made secondary through subtitles and clever narration. The martial arts sections with Chen Zhen as the Masked Warrior are brilliant, of course, with Donnie Yen in the lead role, but only happen a couple of times in the entire film. All of the advertising for the film features the Masked Warrior prominently, but he probably has less than thirty minutes of total screen time. In that, calling Legend of the Fist a superhero film is stretching things a little bit, but my search for more non-American superheroes that originate in their home country has me digging through a lot of stuff like this. Thematically, Legend of the Fist, is probably closer to Mafia/Gangster films, in terms that Western audiences would be familiar with; forbidden romance, people getting killed constantly and plenty of traitors and double agents. 

Legend of the Fist is really more interesting as a Wuxia film, or historical fiction than it is a superhero film, with the light-on sequences involving the Masked Warrior. That said, what is there is interesting enough, and could well be expanded. There is an idea of the Masked Warrior being a legend, or perhaps an identity picked up by people from time-to-time to help seek justice, it's not made too clear. Taking that concept, however, and folding it, Batman-style into the culture of Shanghai in a superhero setting could work well. Like a local Zorro or Phantom equivalent, where the person behind the mask doesn't matter so much as what the costume and identity represent to the oppressed peoples. Maybe the Masked Warrior is spotted in Shanghai, dealing out rough justice, so Super Inframan, over in Hong Kong, misinterprets what is happening and the two at set on a collision course by the evil machinations of Fu Manchu? Then we'd have Masked Warrior versus Inframan, in some kind of dawn of a justice team? It'd be better than Dawn of Justice and you know it.