Keanu Reeves was already able to establish himself as a martial arts actor with “The Matrix”, “Matrix Reloaded” and “Matrix Revolutions” and with the breakthrough success of the “John Wick” movies, Reeves has finally achieved status as an action icon. With rigorous training and a lot of physical effort, the actor performs a significant portion of his gunfu fighting himself – and that’s what “John Wick: Chapter 4” and Co. notice at any time.
However, Reeves took the logical next step before entering the new peak phase of his career in 2014 with “John Wick”: In the 2013 martial arts action game “Man of Tai ChiKeanu Reeves directed it himself – and he didn’t star, he played the villain. And you never really see Reeves as the hero’s dire adversary, despite the unlikely characters he played in movies like The Gift and The Neon Demon.
If you’re interested in Keanu Reeves’ directorial debut or performance as cold-blooded businessman Donaka Mark, you’re in luck: Man Of Tai Chi is out today, May 24, 2023 on NITRO. Alternatively, the beating film is also available as VoD from providers such as Amazonunfortunately you cannot stream “Man Of Tai Chi” with a subscription:
But is “Man Of Tai Chi” even worth it? The answer to this question depends on how passionate you are about martial arts movies. Because in the core discipline, the film convinces with “impressive scenes in which two exceptional athletes simply fight with each other with full commitment while the camera circles around them”, as the editors of FILMSTARTS put it.
But our average rating of 2.5 out of 5 stars already indicates that the props are much less successful: even the other action sequences in “Man Of Tai Chi”, such as a rather cheesy car chase, fall significantly short in comparison. And despite the premise reminiscent of the “Truman Show”, the plot is mostly genre pieces and thus remains largely unsurprising and unenthralling.
But if you don’t mind such substantive foibles, you really get some inspiring martial arts scenes here and you can tune in tonight without hesitation. In addition to Reeves, stuntman and protagonist Tiger Hu Chen and action specialist Yuen Woo-ping (“Matrix”, “Kill Bill”, “Tiger & Dragon”), who choreographed the fights, are responsible for this.
Tiger Hu Chen plays the tai chi student Chen Lin-Hu in “Man Of Tai Chi”, who one day accepts the invitation of the mysterious Donaka Mark (Keanu Reeves) because he urgently needs money to help his master (Yu Shark) to save . But Chen has no idea what he’s getting into when Mark hosts a brutal reality show that Chen should be a part of…