The master never wanted his son, Shen An (Jacky Heung, The Warlords), to follow in his footsteps and live the hard life of a martial artist. Instead, he pulls all his strings to get him a job at a bank. And though Qi Quan (Andy On, Blackhat) may have been the star pupil, he’ll never be the son. People doubt An’s ability to properly run the school, at the same time Quan makes decisions that ruffle the feathers of the kung fu status quo. While pitted against one another in direct competition, the two men aren’t necessarily enemies. Having trained and lived and essentially grown up together, there’s shared respect and affection. There’s a brother-versus-brother quality—and after all, who fights like brothers?
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And hot damn do they fight. Continually. With weapons, with fists, one-on-one, one-on-many; intimate tussles and sprawling, running battles. In one instance, Quan’s crew clears out an entire town square in preparation for a brawl, cheerfully asking vendors to vacate the area, offering oranges as a small compensation. Then the epic fight spills through the streets for so long people stretcher away the wounded even as the action continues.
Heung and On both demonstrate incredible skill, colliding with lightning fast, razor sharp moves, all photographed in wide, clear shots. And the fights aren’t merely for thrills, though they’re wildly thrilling. The Xus use them to propel the plot and deepen the character development. An and Quan fight like an argument, like airing grievances and presenting their cases, using kicks and punches instead of words. At the end of each fight, the landscape has shifted, like at the end of any debate, discussion, or disagreement.
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100 Yards harkens back to classic martial arts cinema, aesthetically and thematically. The period settings and costumes are meticulously designed and mounted. Cinematographer Dan Shao’s camera sweeps and soars through the intricately staged scenes, creating a sense of epic grandeur.
Classic too is the space afforded for melodrama. An has a from-a-different-world love interest, Xia (Bea Hayden Kuo, Kung Fu Monster, and who is also married to Heung), the illegitimate daughter of a local woman and a western banker. Quan also dallies in the romantic with Gui Ying (dancer Tang Shiyi), another student at the school. Both women have agency of their own, and the relationships give the film nuance and color and joy. They create a warmth and complexity for what could easily have been a stone-faced, straight forward standoff between two very serious men. Instead, they’re forced to view the situation from other angles and consider what they’re fighting for and what they truly want.
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Kinetic action and compelling human drama propel 100 Yards. While it’s lovely to behold and has just enough mischief on its mind (there’s more slingshot play than you typically see), the top notch martial arts choreography and execution is the true draw. Everything else is secondary, which is a-okay because the fights are fantastic. Good stuff dammit. [Grade: A-]
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