Legend Of The Wolf (1997) - A Review

 

Legend Of The Wolf gives us a glimpse of Donnie Yen's brilliance before he became a megastar.

Legend Of The Wolf (also known as The New Big Boss and The Big New Boss) is a Hong Kong martial arts movie released in 1997 and stars Donnie Yen, Dayo Wong Chi-Wah, Carman Lee Yeuk-Tung, Edmond Leung Hon-Man, and Ben Lam Kwok-Bun. It was directed, produced, and co-written by Donnie Yen; with action choreographed by Donnie Yen, Tony Tam Chun-To, Mak Wai-Cheung, and Bill Lui Tak-Wai.

Wai (Dayo Wong, left) and Wolf/Fung Man Hin (Donnie Yen).

In Legend Of The Wolf, a young determined man, Ben (played by Edmond Leung Hon-Man) is looking for Wolf (played by Donnie Yen), a legendary assassin. He meets up with Wai (played by Dayo Wong Chi-Wah), who takes Ben to meet Wolf in his office. When Ben sees Wolf, who is old and sleeping at his desk, he is not very impressed. Wai (and eventually Wolf) then tells Ben about Wolf's life...

Through flashbacks, we find out that Wolf came to Wai's poor village in search of a temple. Wai volunteers to take him to the temple, and they become friends. Wolf has amnesia, and all he can remember was that he was a soldier and that he was supposed to meet someone at the temple. Throughout this time, bandits keep attacking Wai and Wolf, and we see that Wolf is an expert fighter. After getting injured in a fight, Wolf reunites with the person he was looking for, but his amnesia makes their reunion bittersweet. As you can imagine, people are looking for Wolf, and they find him in the village. Wolf has to fight these bandits to protect the people he loves...

Carman Lee (left) as Wai-Yee. She and Wolf have a past...

Legend Of The Wolf is the first full Donnie Yen movie I ever bought and watched back in the late 1990s. I bought the VHS tape (it was called The New Big Boss) and excitedly watched it. Not going to lie, I was disappointed. Back then, I was always looking for VHS movies in their correct aspect ratios (so on 4:3 TVs, they would have black bars on the top and bottom of the screen; despite those bars, the whole screen of the movie is shown this way). The New Big Boss was pan and scan, and the picture quality was only okay, not great. Now, why was this movie disappointing? Because of the full screen/pan and scan picture, a lot of the action was hard to see. All you would see was a lot of fists and weapons swinging up close, but you wouldn't see the effect of the moves (you couldn't see who was hitting who). The fight scenes were confusing and a let down. I recently found this movie on American streaming service Tubi, in its correct aspect ratio, so I decided to give it another shot. Does the movie hold up?

Legend Of The Wolf is way, way better than I remember it being! I was actually blown away by how good it was! The story is intriguing (there are a few twists in there), the main characters are interesting, and the action is really good. The movie is never boring and goes by pretty quickly. The actors play their parts well (Ben Lam as the final boss is instantly hateable as soon as he appears; it's amazing actually). This is a serious, dramatic movie for the most part, but there is a little bit of comedy (mainly provided by Dayo Wong Chi-Wah as Wai). The movie has a message, which I feel was conveyed well, but I will leave it up to you to make your own judgement on that.

Donnie Yen is unstoppable in this movie!

The action in Legend Of The Wolf is fast, furious, and hard-hitting. This movie is pretty bloody and violent as well. Seeing as this was a Donnie Yen movie in the 90s, you can expect that the fight scenes are sped up big time. At least in this movie, only certain parts of the fight scenes are sped up. All of the weapons choreography and the rapid-fire punches are sped up to the max, while more of Donnie Yen's varied offense goes at a more normal speed (he's still swift, though). There are also a lot of quick cuts, which may cause you to lose track of where the characters are in relation to each other, and confusion over what's actually happening in the fight. The fights are shot and edited very similar to The Blade (1995) or Ashes Of Time (1994), but I think the fights in Legend Of The Wolf are more coherent than in those movies. The choreography in this movie is not at the level of a Yuen Woo-ping or Sammo Hung, but it is still exciting. Donnie shows off all his awesome kicks in this, and man does he know how to make them look awesome on film. All of the fights in this movie are good...except for maybe the first one (it's a weapons fight), and they are all different from each other. Donnie's fight against the monkey style kung fu fighter is probably the best in this movie, while the final fight is the most emotional (for obvious reasons). Depending on your fight scene preferences, you may enjoy the fight scenes in this movie or you will absolutely despise them.

I recommend watching Legend Of The Wolf. It's got an interesting story, likeable protagonists, and lots of violent and bloody action. A lot of the reviews I read said this movie offers nothing new; it's full of cliches and terrible fight scenes. I don't know, the movie was deep enough for me, and the action was pretty awesome (though I admit to not liking the fight scenes when I first watched it decades ago). I think Donnie Yen did a pretty good job in his movie directorial debut. Directing this movie was the first step in him becoming the martial arts movie megastar he was always meant to be. Check it out, you may like it!

Reviewed by David Williams