One can be forgiven for thinking there’s a certain similarity between Neo, the hero from the Matrix and  Donaka Mark, the villain in Man of Tai Chi. Both have a clipped off, deliberate style to speech. Both use fairly matter of fact sentence structure. Both dress in black all the time. And both are played by the very unmistakable Keanu Reeves. And while Man of Tai Chi was written by Michael G. Cooney, it marks the directorial debut of Mr. Reeves, who seems heavily influenced by his time making the Matrix movies. To call this film an homage to kung-fu movies is probably not accurate. It is a kung-fu movie. And a pretty good one at that.

Wait – I get to direct and act? Really?

I basically knew nothing about this film walking in, which is an entirely refreshing experience. I had seen a preview I think long ago but this was one of those experiences where the movie popped up out of nowhere as having one showtime and I was like… done and done. It’s not often you get to see something unadulterated by the barrage of advertising that proceeds. Being that I pay attention to films now, this really doesn’t happen often. I last had this kind of experience going with friends to see Iron Sky at local art house theater SiFF Cinemas.

Tiger Hu Chen was a stuntman on the final two Matrix movies, but this time gets top dog role playing (Tiger) Chen Lin-Hu. I’m still trying to decide if that qualifies as a name change. The film switches between Chinese and English to give a nice balance to both audiences watching Tiger’s progression from angry young man, who studies Tai Chi with his peace loving master, into fearless warrior as cultivated by ruthless businessman Donaka Mark.

The movie works because it knows what it is. A seemingly simple set up of Chinese philosophy placed into modern values. Old school ideas thrust into new school commercialism. Punctuated by a whole bunch of fight scenes. Studying Tai Chi is about inner balance but Tiger uses it to compete and get what he wants. Sometimes that’s money to fend off the contractors tearing down his master’s home and sometimes it’s just glory to feed his inner rage. Either way – there’s just enough morality and philosophy to argue something is being taught by this movie. But really, it’s all about the fight scenes. And there are plenty of them.

Philosophizing while fighting is way more efficient.

Man of Tai Chi is a series of set-ups for fights of increasing complexity as Tiger descends into the criminal depths of a fighting ring being promoted by Donaka.  Hong Kong police officer Sun Jingshi (Karen Mok)  is the voice of morality as she hopes to pull Tiger from those depths and break open the criminal ring. But it’ll take time to convince him fully. Just enough time to stage a ton of fights. How convenient for us. And boy are the fights fun. The martial arts scenes are wonderfully choreographed pieces of kung-fu wizardry with only the smallest amount of wire work, which is odd to have any given how little is used. Keanu is adept at creating interesting pictures, often centering the subject directly in full frame. A possible nod to the symmetry of the subject matter.  And Tiger Chen is a blur or acrobatics. I did notice a few times that some edits created pacing changes in the kung-fu itself where things seemed slow for a second before going back to original speed. It’s minor and there’s so much to admire in the fight scenes because you really can tell what is going on (every director take note… audiences like being able to follow the action). The fights have a sense of danger, of depth, and of tension that makes you appreciate everyone involved.

It all eventually leads up to the final showdown with Donaka himself. I’m sure that’s not a spoiler, it’s a kung-fu movie for goodness’ sake. What really fascinated me was how watching the exceptionally tall Keanu Reeves fight the much shorter Tiger Chen, reminded me of the original Mortal Kombat. I mean this in the best way and I hope Reeves was doing this on purpose. The deliberate and powerful movement, the sections of flat 2-D framing as if watching from an audience, the background of the fighting school as arena, all reminded me of my days playing Mortal Kombat. Keanu even says “finish him.” I mean come on!

Tell me this isn’t a Mortal Kombat loading screen.

One other thing I want to point out without joking in the least, as I watched Man of Tai Chi, I was more than aware of a physical similarity in the face between Keanu Reeves and Tiger himself. Again I don’t know if that was on purpose but something about that worked for me as well. Another chance for balance.

This movie is stylish, mixing it’s modern thrusting electronic score with it’s minimalist look. This movie is fast, giving enough fights to make any casual fan of the genre happy. This movie is balanced, getting its point across without lingering too much or pretending to have larger ideals than it really has.

At 105 minutes, Man of Tai Chi plays like 105 minutes. Just as long as you want it to be.