Wushu expert Qiang (Sang Wei-Lin) leaves his hometown in the country and heads for bigger things in the city. Jobs are hard to come by but Qiang comes to see a new path in martial arts when he squares off with Xanda champion Zhao (Teng Jun). He ends up losing and in the skirmish surrounding this fight, his friend ends up in hospital with a juicy bill to boot. Qiang wants and now also needs to join Coach Tieh's (Zhang Hong-Jun) Xanda school but his confidence is not fitting for the discipline, making him greatly lose his first tournament match. It all comes down to discovering yourself through a devotion to Xanda or to girlfriend Ning (Ni Jing-Yang)...

Not blessed with scope, budget or name talent, the team behind Xanda consciously borrow heavily, mainly from the obvious source which of course is Rocky. However it does come from an area of necessity and need for simplicity due to the cast involved here but it's always the question of how much talent do you have to make previous seen choices resonate, even slightly? Marco Mak certainly has made his visual sense his one of his most distinguishable trait and even if Xanda offers probably zero frames of originality, he does something unexpected based on what little he actually has; entertains.

Beware though, he doesn't show much confidence in his film as the opening reel is filled with sped-up shots and weird intercutting that just screams "I'm afraid my movie is just too boring! I bring you this instead". When relocating to the rural, and not so picturesque China, Mak takes the first sports movie cliché stepping stone forward. In a way, the drab surroundings do function for the character of Qiang and his inner desires to breakout. Along the way, as these things go, he'll go through ignorance, rejection, love and discovery. Yes, it actually is terribly overdone and cliché so how the hell does Marco Mak make this as decently entertaining as it is? God knows he's not doing anything original but the answer simply lies in the fact that he injects enough heart into Qiang's character journey to make Xanda a cut above the expectations (especially of a Tsui Hark production these days also).

His flashbacks to Qiang and his friendship with wheelchair bound Yu presents the obvious parallels in the present, hammered home tenfold (subtlety rarely is Mak's forté as a director) but set against the rural backdrop, working from Rico Cheung and Lin Xiao-Long's script (or rather template), this somewhat actually begins to resonate emotionally on the level of seen clichés. As contrived as it is, even the romance between Qiang and Ning, plays out and involves for the moment anyway (I was personally awed by the fact that Ni Jing-Yang looks eerily like Charlie Yeung!). Even Mak's visual trickery ranks as original at times, mainly during the scenes featuring Xanda fighting.

I read an interview prior with Tsui Hark where he explained that transferring Xanda to the big screen really required some of today's fast cut, MTV style editing. Action director Ma Zhong-Xuan does what he can with that choice but in the end, the experiment is a rather mediocre one in terms of exhilarating on-screen fighting. Performers Sang Wei-Lin, Zhao Zi-Long and Teng Jun obviously are very capable and display the odd beautiful acrobatic move but the only aspect that really makes the action scenes stand out are some of Marco Mak's jazzing up of the visuals together with cinematographers Herman Yau and Sunny Tsang. Those moments have more to do with impact, taking place outside of the main action directing (the many shots of flying sweat surprisingly gets old very late). Mak has shown more creativity in the past, among other things morphing the picture of The Last Supper into Francis Ng in A Gambler's Story, but again, based on what little Team Workshop had here, whatever positives that do show up are still positives. The Hong Kong cinema action fans won't be screaming for more Xanda movies after this but experimenting is always welcome.

Probably THE most stand out element in this largely amateur acted affair is lead Sang Wei-Lin who along with Zhao Zi-Long and Teng Jun are real life Xanda practitioners. Going back to the fact that the template certainly screams Rocky, I think giving Sang that simple arc probably benefited him as a first time actor. He goes through the requisite ups and downs of Qiang neither well or catastrophically bad. Sang has nothing to be ashamed of but there is probably not going to be more roles for him unless Xanda becomes a long running series....

Xanda surprises because coming from Tsui Hark and Film Workshop in 2003, you won't hear any form of cheers from the fan community, regardless of what type of film it is. I feel that Tsui Hark is definitely justly criticized nowadays (Black Mask 2) but also unjustly (Legend Of Zu). This low-budget action-drama doesn't echo memories of better works of the past either for Marco Mak or Tsui but with my expectations therefore set low, the filmmakers still unexpectedly drew me in for 90 minutes. If you feel unjustly drawn in for 90 minutes, then rest assured Xanda won't linger long in your memories.

Review: Xanda is producer Tsui Hark's attempt to bring the sport of Sanda or San Shou to the big screen. It's a relatively new sport started in China as a way for Wushu practitioners to engage in full contact matches. Thus, rather than the acrobatic and traditional forms as practiced by actors Jet Li and Wu Jing, San Shou experts employ a less-flowery mix of kickboxing, boxing, and throws. It's an intense martial art that possesses practical self defense value, but competitors are limited by boxing gloves and rules prohibiting grappling and other ground techniques.

The story in Xanda is routine as it pretty much covers the same ground as Rocky, released twenty-seven years prior. One difference is that the lead stars are real San Shou fighters rather than former porn stars (yes, I'm talking about Sylvester Stallone). Sang Wei-lin plays Qiang, a country boy whose overconfidence in his traditional kung fu training literally gets smacked down in a chance encounter with Xanda champion Wei (Teng Jun). After his friend is injured in the ensuing scrap at a restaurant, Qiang decides to get into Xanda for the money to pay the medical bill. Lung (Zhao Zi-long), another friend, talks his father, Coach Tieh (Zhang Hong-jun), into letting Qiang join their club to train. Qiang's first real match is a disaster and he soon quits to find comfort in booze. But with the help of his new girlfriend (Ni Jing-yang), Qiang bounces back and soon finds himself training again after Lung suffers a crippling defeat at the hands of Wei.

Nobody should be expecting much from the story. After Rocky, there are virtually no good ring fighting films. Rocky sequels - same formula followed by steady decline. Bloodsport - good action, bad story. Bloodfist - low budget flick from the screenwriter of Cutthroat Island, 'nuff said. Ali - casting Will Smith as the great Muhammad Ali is only the first of many mistakes this film makes. Star Runner - dismal direction and writing kills this one. You get the point, although a glance back will reveal a couple of hits like Duel of Fists and Raging Bull.

Comparisons aside, Xanda is not a bad film. The romantic and dramatic angst surrounding Qiang's lost love for a wheel-chair bound girl from his hometown is clichéd, but only until we're shown one of their arguments that basically reinforces the fact that Qiang is a bit of a jerk. It seems unrealistic that his city girlfriend would continue to pursue him despite his sullen behavior and single-minded devotion to his chosen sport. Even their first intimate moment is a bit much as she puckers up to his freshly swollen and bloody face following his first royal beating in the ring. Both his attitude and ring-fighting skills are supposed to improve during the course of the film, but the transition gets lost amid a quick montage of training sequences and clowning about with his guitar-playing girl. If any good martial arts competition film should teach us anything, it's that training to be a winner takes massive effort. At the very least, we should have to endure a few fights along the way. But all we get here are two ring fights with Qiang, his initial defeat and his climatic match with Wei.

Although the film itself is shot with a refreshing independent look to capture city and country scenes, Tsui Hark opts to use stylized camera work for the fights and this is a mistake. Quick cuts, shaky cam footage and tons of slow motion turn the action into gratuitous spitting, lurching, and rumbling sessions that are hammered over the viewer's head like anvils. Tsui Hark has never been known for subtlety in filmmaking and while it seems like he tries to make an effort here, it fails. Filmmakers need to learn to let the choreography have its own voice. Ching Siu-tung is one of the few action directors who can get away with heavy editing because it is so much a part of his style, but then it would have been wrong for this film too.

The acting performances from mostly amateurs are good, but not great. All three of the action leads, Sang Wei-lin, Zhao Zi-long, and Teng Jun show potential as martial arts stars. They're all impressive fighters, despite the editing. It's also nice to be viewing a clean slate, where one has no preconceived ideas of how an actor might approach a role. Since everyone is unknown, it's easier to just sit back and focus on the events as they unfold.

Xanda is not far from being the kind of breakthrough film that Tsui envisioned where new stars and action emerge. He gets kudos for pushing Chinese martial arts cinema away from the oversaturated wuxia genre and back into semi-reality. By working with a mainland cast and crew, he has succeeded better than any of the bubblegum tripe from Hong Kong in the last several years like Anna in Kung Fu Land. Yet, he doesn't go far enough and this is where the film falters. Nevertheless, it's still a reasonably entertaining flick for anyone who appreciates more drama with their reality-based action.