The Hidden Blade, Starring “Little” Tony Leung

You know this film must be propaganda, when it is the third installment of the so-called “China Victory Trilogy,” especially when the first two films magically transformed disasters into “victories.” In Chinese Doctors, the doctors of Wuhan bravely battle the spread of Covid-19, whereas in reality, the authorities did their best to cover it up. Then came The Battle of Lake Changsin, rewriting the history of the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, in which 120,000 PLA troops surrounded 30,000 UN Forces, who managed to slip through their encirclement to fight another day. At least the Japanese really did lose WWII, but it is highly debatable how much Mao’s Communists contributed to their defeat. Of course, that is not how director-screenwriter Cheng Er tells it in The Hidden Blade, which opens today in New York.

The Japanese think Mr. He is the director of their Shanghai counter-intelligence operation, but he is actually a double agent truly loyal to the Communist Party’s Special Branch. One of his duties is eliminating traitors like Liang, whom he meets with in the prologue. Eventually, the film will catch back up to this scene, as it flashes backwards and forwards. It almost seems like Cheng deliberately fractured his narrative to obscure the film’s didactic implications.

Regardless, it seems only Mr. He’s chief enforcer, Mr. Ye ever starts to wonder about him, even though his behavior is highly suspicious. Mr. He certainly has his Japanese military boss Watanabe fooled. The stakes are certainly high for him, since He’s lover, Ms. Chen is active Communist agent.

Frankly, if it were not for Cheng’s narrative gamesmanship and obfuscations, the story here would be pretty straight forward. Naturally, it still slavishly follows the Party Line. Cheng is much more successful as a visual stylist than a burnisher of national myths, because the film has a strikingly noir look. It makes you think Shanghai during the war couldn’t have been so bad, judging from all the late night cafes that were operating.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, on Disney+

Serious question: did Disney/Marvel accidentally hire the wrong Tony Leung? They were quite distressed when their first martial arts film was not granted a coveted release slot for Chinese theaters, despite their profuse, prostrating apologies for the original comic book licensing Sax Rohmer’s notoriously stereotyped villain Fu Manchu, way back in the 1970s. Yet, it is worth noting Tony Leung Chiu Wai had issued statements in support of Umbrella protestors, whereas Tony Leung Ka-fai publicly backed the abusive HK police. (Also, it was partly filmed in Australia, a nation the CCP has been particularly belligerent towards.) Regardless, it seems Hollywood has been hellbent on selling its soul to a devil it does not understand. There is still no Mainland release date for Destin Daniel Cretton’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, but it finally starts streaming on Disney+ this Friday.

Shaun is not merely a laid-back valet attendant. He is really the son of powerful crime-lord Xu Wenwu, a.k.a. “The Mandarin,” but absolutely, positively not Dr. Fu Manchu. He came to America to break ties with his father’s organization, but they inevitably come looking for him. Fortunately, he manages to fend of his father’s unnaturally enhanced henchmen, much to the surprise of his hard-drinking platonic bestie, Katy. Fearing Xiu will next come after his estranged sister Xu Xialing, they rush off to Macau to warn her.

Now the leader of a rival Triad, Xu is less than thrilled to reconnect with Shang-Chi, but their father’s assassins essentially force them into a truce. The reunion with Dad is even more awkward, but eventually they get a warmer reception from their Aunt Ying Nan, a mystical guardian of the legendary city Ta Lo. They will help her protect their late mother’s idyllic home from Xu’s army and the power of the titular ten rings that keep him looking so youthful.

From the CCP’s perspective (and maybe Marvel’s) Tony Leung Chiu Wai might have been the wrong Tony, but for anyone who believes in principles like freedom of expression, democratic governance, human rights, and free enterprise, he is the right Tony—and he is indeed terrific in Ten Rings. Despite the plentiful CGI, his training for The Grandmaster clearly did not go to waste. More importantly, he truly humanizes the super-villain, while brooding like nobody’s business. Twenty years from now Ten Rings will probably be programmed alongside In the Mood for Love and 2046 during “Little Tony” Leung retrospectives.

Leung makes the movie, but Simu Liu holds up his end as the action lead. He also has winning chemistry with Awkwafina, providing non-cringy comic relief as Katy. You can sort of see her coaxing Liu out of his dramatic shell, just as her character draws his out socially. As Xialing, Meng’er Zhang matches Liu step-for-step in their fight scenes. Yet, nothing can match the thrill of seeing the great Michelle Yeoh continue to command the screen as Ying Nan. It is also fun to see Benedict Wong briefly turn up as Wong from Dr. Strange. However, Sir Ben Kingsley inspires face-palms with his shticky sad clown routine as Trevor Slattery, the woeful actor set-up to be the Mandarin’s fall guy (and supply a link back to Iron Man 3).

Maggie Cheung at Metrograph: 2046

It is the sequel to end all sequels. Frankly, it is hard to imagine they were conceived together, yet Wong Kar-wai reportedly was already planning it while he was filming the masterful In the Mood for Love. They might sound radically different on paper, but the same longing and regret is present throughout Wong’s 2046 (trailer here), which screens as part of the Metrograph’s retrospective series Maggie Cheung: Center Stage.

In one sense, 2046 might seem like a ringer in the Cheung series, because she only appears in brief flashback scenes, but her absence thoroughly dominates the film. Chow Mo-wan has returned from Singapore and Cambodia, picking up his literary and journalistic career as best he can. He never saw Cheung’s Su Li-zhen again, but her memory clearly haunts. In fact, his unresolved feelings make him incapable of maintaining a healthy relationship.

Chow and Su used to meet in room #2046 of his residency hotel, so he requests the same number in Mr. Wang’s seedy, but assignation friendly Oriental Hotel (we are still in the mid-1960s here). However, he will settle for #2047. At first, #2046 is occupied by Lulu, a.k.a. Mimi, a callback from Wong’s Days of Being Wild. When she precipitously moves out (a not-so uncommon practice in Wang’s establishment), Bai Ling moves in. Chow definitely notices her and can often hear her entertaining through the thin walls (and vice versa).

For a while, they carry on an ambiguous something, but he can never give her what she needs. He also assumes the role of a flirtatious Cyrano figure for Wang Jing-wen, the owner’s eldest daughter, who conducts a secret long distance love affair with a Japanese man her father disapproves of, due to national prejudice. Chow cannot even make things work with the second Su Li-zhen, a mysterious professional gambler who saves his skin in Singapore.

Yet, Chow himself duly notes, the women who lose patience and exit his life often turn up in his fiction, particularly his science fiction stories, “2046” and “2047.” In this dystopia universe, 2046 is ambiguously both a time and a place of stasis, reachable by a train staffed with sexually compliant automatons (two of whom look like Wang Jing-wen and Lulu). Heartsick lovers often travel there to revisit past memories, but nobody ever came back, until Tak (a dead ringer for Wang’s Japanese lover) embarks on a return trip.

When seen in close succession, Mood and 2046 pack a mean one-two combination punch. We definitely miss Cheung’s Su, but that is the whole point. We also fall hard for Bai Ling, Wang Jing-wen, and the second Su, yet we understand exactly why Chow is so emotionally hobbled.

Even with his Errol Flynn mustache, “Little” Tony Leung Chiu Wai just radiates broken-hearted weariness. He has panache, but he cuts a rather gloomy, existential figure. However, it is Zhang Ziyi who really gives viewers a kick in the teeth as the radiate but heart-rending Bai Ling. Arguably, Faye Wong covers an even greater spectrum as the more upbeat Wang Jing-wen and the exquisitely tragic gynoid. Carina Lau makes the most of her diva turn as Lulu, but Gong Li is an outright showstopper as the Singapore Su. Nobody else could wring so much intrigue and dark romance out of such limited screen time.

Production on 2046 was inconveniently interrupted by the SARS outbreak, but you would not know it from the finished film. It is seductively sad in a way that flows naturally from Mood, even during its flights of fantastical speculation. Without question, it features some of the best screen thesps of our time, working with one of the most distinctive international auteurs and accomplished cinematographers (Christopher Doyle, with an assist from the skilled Kwan Pung-leung), all of whom are working at the peaks of their creative powers. Very highly recommended, 2046 screens twice today (12/18) at the Metrograph, as part of Maggie Cheung: Center Stage.

Maggie Cheung at Metrograph: In the Mood for Love

Four years after Comrades: Almost a Love Story, Maggie Cheung once again starred as half of a not quite-romantic couple, whose lives would be symbolized by romantic pop music. Unfortunately, Sinatra’s “Change Partners” was not on either Su Li-zhen or Chow Mo-wan’s playlists when they discover their respective spouses have been carrying on a secret affair. As they struggle with this realization, they start to develop feelings for each other. However, everything will conspire against a turnaround-is-fair-play affair, most especially themselves in Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love (trailer here), one of the first straight-up classics of the 2000s, which screens as part of the Metrograph’s retrospective series Maggie Cheung:Center Stage.

Both Su (or Mrs. Chan, depending on the custom of those addressing her) and Chow move into spare rooms in adjacent flats on the same day. Coincidentally, both have been left by their partners to handle the move on their own. Renting rooms in strangers’ flats might sound grim, but this is 1962 Hong Kong. Real estate is just as scarce as it is now, but there was less wealth to drive development. Nevertheless, many look back on this time with nostalgia, as a uniquely social period in their lives, but for Su and Chow, it will be far more complicated.

Both Su’s husband and Chow’s wife travel abroad, which affords them ready alibis, but also means their exclusive gifts for each other are tell-tale signs. Since both betrayed spouses are intelligent professionals, they pick up on the clues rather quickly, but they are unsure what to do about it. Meeting secretly, they “rehearse” confrontations with their unfaithful partners are try to simulate key moments in the affair, for the sake of their own understanding. They also discover shared interests, including a fondness for wuxia novels. The audience can tell they would be perfect together, but reserved early 1960s HK society would not see it that way.

Wong never directly shows us Mr. Chan or Mrs. Chow, only affording them voiceovers and back-of-the-head shots, like Charlie in Charlie’s Angels and Robin Masters in Magnum P.I. It is a very effective strategy for controlling viewers’ perceptions and emotions, but we can’t help wondering what do these people look like that they could tempt their lovers into cheating on Maggie Cheung and “Little” Tony Leung Chiu Wai? Seriously, together they make one undeniably photogenic couple.

Regardless, Mood is an achingly romantic film, but it has a decidedly dark edge. Su and Chow are the aggrieved parties, but they do not necessarily always act with the best of intentions. They are both inclined to brood, yet we still cannot help wanting to see finally consummate their yearnings.

Wong always makes it clear how the confined spaces and nosy neighbors constantly undermine their forbidden feelings for each other. He regularly frames his co-leads through cramped passage ways and narrow doorways, powerfully evoking a sense of claustrophobia. He also crafts some arresting images in the process. Frankly, Mood is one of a precious few films, whose dazzling auteurist style actually brings us into the hearts and head-spaces of its characters, rather than keeping viewers on the outside looking in.

In terms of chemistry, Cheung and Leung are just stunning together. Reportedly, Mood and Comrades are two of a handful of films that really mean something personal to Cheung, which will make perfect sense to viewers judging from what is on the screen. They both give career-defining performances, but Rebecca Pan humanizes the messy situation even further as Mrs. Suen, Su’s well-intentioned but conservative mahjong-playing land lady.

Thanks to the stylistically dissimilar yet somehow consistently compatible cinematography of Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping Bing (not to mention Cheung’s elegant cheongsam wardrobe), Mood always looks absolutely beautiful. The exquisitely sentimental love songs of Zhou Xuan, Nat King Cole, and traditional Cantonese Opera also make it sound wonderfully old-fashioned. It is easily one of the best films of 2000 (with its only real competition coming from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Very highly recommended, In the Mood for Love screens this Sunday (12/18) and Wednesday (12/21) at the Metrograph, as part of Maggie Cheung: Center Stage.

Mark Lee Ping-Bing at MoMA: Flowers of Shanghai

Rarely have drinking games and prostitution ever looked so sophisticated. In late Nineteenth Century Shanghai, all the well-to-do gentlemen visited the elegant brothels or flower houses of the British Concession. These were not places to run amok. The flower girls were more like courtesans than sex workers. It was common for patrons to contract exclusive arrangements and the women themselves were considered reasonably marriageable (as second wives, mind you). There was an intricate code of conduct to be upheld by all parties in the exclusive environment. The trappings are lush and the lighting is in fact rather crimson, thanks to the rich, painterly cinematography of Mark Lee Ping-Bing. Fittingly, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s delicate Flowers of Shanghai, which screens as part of Luminosity, MoMA’s retrospective tribute to Lee.

Like many Hou films, Shanghai begins with a tracking shot that sets the tone for the rest of the film. In this case, we watch Shanghai’s Chinese elite play a drinking game, while parceling out fragments of exposition that partially explain the central conflict. The audience will see this apparent cousin of rock-paper-scissors many times, but it remains utterly baffling. It is easier to understand Wang’s dilemma. The wealthy civil servant has fallen in love with an up-and-coming “flower” named Jasmine, despite his long-term patronage of Crimson. Panicked at the prospect of losing her sole client, Crimson has rather publically rebuked Wang.

The resulting scandal has the gentleman caller in a bit of a quandary. After all, he still has feelings for Crimson as well. In fact, he even once proposed to her, only to be rejected. Most of this we learn during the various drinking games, but the experienced Pearl from a rival flower house is always a handy source of gossip. The British Concession will also be talking about Emerald’s rather bold campaign to buy her freedom.

The brothels of Game of Thrones were never as talky as these rarified flower houses. Yet, everyone scrupulously represses their feelings and refuses to say the things they are dying to say. Nobody is better suited to such fatalistic brooding than quietly charismatic “Little Tony” Leung Chiu-Wai. Although dubbed into Cantonese, Japanese model-turned-actress Michiko Hada is perilously fragile and acutely tragic as Crimson. Watching her and Leung circle each other is like ballet or kabuki theater. In contrast, Carina Lau delivers some old school cattiness as Pearl.

As one would expect, there was good reason for including Shanghai in the Luminosity retrospective, beyond Hou’s auteur credentials and the all-star cast. Lee always makes the film quite literally glow. Thanks to his evocative lens, it feels like every scene takes place around two a.m. (even when they don’t), just when the flower houses are starting to wind down for the night. A lovely film and a perfect illustration of Lee’s work, Flowers of Shanghai screens this Friday (6/17) and Wednesday the 29^th as part of Luminosity at MoMA.

Seven Warriors: Sammo Hung Puts Them Through Their Paces

Seven is an auspicious number. There are the Wonders of the World and Deadly Sins. It also only takes seven hardnosed mercenaries to rally a small village’s defenses. The template created by Akira Kurosawa and burnished by John Sturges’ classic western is transplanted to Republican China in Terry Tong’s Seven Warriors (trailer here), notably co-directed by Sammo Hung, which releases today on DVD from Well Go USA.

Right, you know how this goes. The women of a provincial village regularly plundered by outlaws shame their men into recruiting some hired guns. They find seven volunteers: Commander Chi, five of his former comrades-in-arms, and the over-eager country bumpkin Wong Way-wu. It quickly gets personal when Chi discovers an old colleague happens to be the chief warlord in question. The stakes also increase for Wong when he secretly shelters the sister of Hung Sap Kan, the leader of an aborted rebellion in a nearby village, who meets a premature end during the prologue.

Viewers should have a pretty clear idea what they are dealing with from the old school foley effects and heroic synthesizer music. Compared to its two notable predecessors, Warriors is definitely the lesser of the Trio of Seven, but it still delivers plenty of high spirited period action. Also serving as action choreographer, Master Hung stages some nifty fight scenes. The overall body count is also rather impressive. Yet, what might standout most are the frequency and severity of mistakes made by the home team. You certainly cannot accuse them of comic book invincibility.

Master Hung also shows his moves that defy the laws of physics during his cameo smackdown as his namesake. It is also rather amusing to see a young “Little” Tony Leung Chiu Wai (now so familiar to us as the mature smoothie) as the rustic Wong. Both he and Wu Ma (best known for supernatural fare, like A Chinese Ghost Story) overdo the comic relief, but there will be plenty of tragedy to offset it.

There are some surprisingly striking visuals in Warriors, as well as some genuinely earnest performances. Hung keeps the action gritty and grounded and Tong maintains a respectable pace. Altogether, it works pretty well, especially for those for whom it will appeal to a sense of nostalgia. Recommended for genre fans, Seven Warriors is now available on DVD and BluRay from Well Go USA.

Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster

Ip Man has become a transcendent hero.  All the films and stories about him are true, even when they contradict each other, because we need his example of heroic humility.  Ip was a master of the southern style of kung fu known as Wing Chun.  Settling in Hong Kong after the Communist takeover, he became the city’s most prominent martial arts teacher.  He often lived a hand-to-mouth existence, but he attained a measure of immortality through his celebrated student, Bruce Lee.  Posterity will not be so kind to the northern school, for classically tragic reasons revealed in The Grandmaster (trailer here), Wong Kar Wai’s eagerly anticipated take on Ip Man, the man and the legend, which opens this Friday in New York.

Born to a life of privilege, Ip Man has become the leading proponent of the Wing Chun school of kung fu.  For Grandmaster Gong Baosen of the northern 64 Hands school, Ip is a fitting sparring partner for his grand retirement tour.  In observance of custom, challenges are made and met with grace.  However, Gong’s intensely loyal daughter Gong Er is determined to take matters further.  When she and Ip spar, it makes a profound impression on them both.  No longer mere rivals, an ambiguous but palpable mutual attraction develops between them.  Ip plans to travel north to see Gong and her 64 Hands style again, but the Japanese invasion rudely intervenes.

The occupation years will be difficult for both non-lovers.  Ip and his wife Zhang Yongcheng will mourn their children who succumb to starvation, while Gong Er watches in horror as Ma San, her father’s last great pupil-turned Japanse collaborator, usurps the 64 Hands.  Years later, Ip Man and Gong Er will meet again in Hong Kong, but their wartime decisions will continue to keep them apart.

Considering how long fans have waited, it is almost impossible for Grandmaster to live up to expectations, but happily it comes pretty close.  Although separate and distinct from the Ip Man franchise distributed by Well Go USA, “Little” Tony Leung Chiu Wai has the perfect look and gravitas for the celebrated master, nicely finding his niche as the experienced leading man Ip Man, in between Donnie Yen’s young, confident Ip and Anthony Wong’s elder statesman Ip.  Pushed and prodded by Wong, Leung arguably does some of his best martial arts work yet, but he also conveys the essence of the acutely disciplined Ip.

As good as Leung is, Ziyi Zhang more or less takes over the picture and that’s totally cool.  She even gets the big pivotal fight scene, which delivers in spades. A haunting and seductive presence, she brings out genuinely Shakespearean dimensions in Gong.

As a martial arts film, Grandmaster offers plenty of show-stopping sequences, clearly and fluidly staged with only a hint of the extreme stylization that marked Wong’s Ashes of Time Redux.  Surprisingly though, the film is as much a lyrical epic of love and yearning.  Indeed, the snowy northern climes and train station settings call to mind Doctor Zhivago more than Enter the Dragon.  Of course, Wong fully understands the power of a passing glance and incidental touch, exquisitely conveying the perverse satisfaction of denial.

The Grandmaster is a very good film that should please genre fans and art house audiences in equal measure.  It is probably the Ziyi Zhang, Tony Leung, and Wong Kar Wai collaboration we have hoped for since 2046. A sensitive but muscular portrait of Bruce Lee’s great master, it is a worthy addition to the Ip Man canon.  Highly recommended, The Grandmaster opens this Friday (8/23) in New York at the Angelika Film Center and the AMC Empire.

The Great Magician: Nothing Up Tony Leung’s Sleeve

Any good illusion depends on a distraction.  There were plenty of those in Republican era China, including rampant warlordism, the threat of foreign intervention, and a conspiracy to restore the Qing dynasty. Yet, master illusionist Chang Hsien is far more concerned with rescuing his former fiancée in Derek Yee’s The Great Magician (trailer here), which releases today on DVD and BluRay from Well Go USA.

When Chang left to study magic abroad it left his intended without his ostensive protection.  Belatedly learning she has been kidnapped and forced to live as warlord Bully Lei’s wife #7, Chang falls in with a group of revolutionaries plotting to abduct the abductor.  However, he finds Liu Yin is just as hacked off at him as she is with Lei, whose clumsy advances she easily foils with some vintage Jackie Chan style acrobatics.

Nonetheless, Chang is determined to save her and his imprisoned mentor (her father, of course), but as he befriends Lei under false pretenses, he learns the circumstances are more complicated than he suspected and the warlord might not be as bad as he assumed.  Then the real bad guys get down to business.

There are some stylishly choreographed scenes of Chang in performance that look great and advance the story quite cleverly.  However, the film’s real ace in the hole is Zhou Xun’s Liu Yin.  Subverting the damsel-in-distress convention, she is a genuine force to be reckoned with.  Zhou frequently flashes her “we are not amused” look and it kills every time.

The suave illusionist might sound like a perfect role for Tony Leung (Little Tony Chiu-wai of Red Cliff and 2046, not Big Tony Ka-fa The Lover and Election) and he indeed fits comfortably into the tuxedo.  Although he makes a smooth transition from martial arts to stage illusions, Leung frankly gets a bit hammy when the film periodically veers into slapstick.  Yet, he is the picture of dignity compared to Lau Ching-wan, who mugs shamelessly as Bully Lei.  Still, the way their friendship develops on screen is somewhat endearing.

There is a lot of handsome spectacle in Great Magician, nicely rendered by Siu Fu Ma’s VFX team.  Zhou’s fans will also be delighted with a lovely performance dripping with attitude, which considerably elevates the proceedings.  There is a fair amount of shtick to wade through, though.  Recommended for primarily fans of Leung, Zhou, and magic in general, The Great Magician is now available for home viewing from Well Go USA.

Butterfly Swords: Yeoh, Yen, and Leung Bring the Wuxia

Who would you rather have your butt kicked by, 2012 NYAFF Star Asia award winner Donnie Yen, Michelle “The Lady” Yeoh, or Tony Leung?  Leung would probably be the safest choice.  You certainly would not pick Yeoh, if you know what’s good for you.  She is characteristically lethal and rather Machiavellian, but also unexpectedly vulnerable in Michael Mak’s Butterfly Swords, which Well Go USA releases today on DVD.

Once fellow street urchins, Meng Sing-wan, Lady Ko, and Yip Cheung have become the top assassins of the Happy Forest martial arts alliance.  Lady Ko is the brains of the operation, reporting directly to Eunuch Tsao.  Unfortunately, her patron is not long for this earth.  As his nearly dying wish, he asks Ko to retrieve a document proving the conspiracy between a rival eunuch and the rebellious Estates Villa martial arts faction.

Tiring of the assassin’s life, Meng wants to settle down with Butterfly, the daughter of a reformed martial artist.  As far as she knows, he is just a humdrum businessman, who happens to know an awful lot about weapons.  However, since the fate of the empire is at stake, he agrees to go undercover with the Estates Villas.  Ko is supposed to look after Butterfly while he is on assignment, but she rarely holds up her end of the bargain.  Even though Meng considers her “Sister” Ko, she has always carried a torch for her not-really brother.  Likewise, Yip pines for her, but his feelings are definitely not reciprocated.

Given Meng and Ko’s status as sort-of but not really siblings, Butterfly Swords has an odd vaguely Tennessee Williams-V.C. Andres vibe that sets in apart from other wuxia swordplay spectacles.  While consistently preposterous, many of the action sequences choreographed by Ching Siu-tung are quite inventive, particularly a gravity-defying melee atop a bamboo forest (remember, those trees bend but do not break).  The exposition is brief, yet confusing.  However, the longing triangle of Ko, Meng, and Yip works surprisingly well.

The lynchpin of the film is unquestionably Yeoh.  She has some great action scenes with her decapitating scarf, but is also quite convincing expressing Lady Ko’s yearnings and insecurities.  Of the trio, Donnie Yen is probably the one short-changed for screen time as Yip, but he still has some decent drunken fight scenes.  Tony Leung does not have the same presence he would display in subsequent John Woo and Wong Kar-wai masterworks, but he develops some engaging chemistry with Yeoh and Joey Wong’s Butterfly, nonetheless.  It is also nice to see the latter in one of her final screen roles before she entered her semi-retirement (periodically interrupted by special return appearances), even if the character is a bit of a stock type.

Butterfly Swords is not a transcendent wuxia classic, but its willingness to go for broke is certainly entertaining.  Yet, its best moments are the relatively quiet ones.  Fans of Yeoh and Yen (and isn’t that just about everyone?) should enjoy checking it out on DVD, on-sale today (7/10) from Well Go USA, a company with offices in Texas, China, and Taiwan, so they ought to know and thing or two about brawls and beatdowns.