'Tai Chi Zero' is a fabulous first episode

Chinese movies are easy to miss when they come through Los Angeles--they don't play in many places. If you're somewhere else, I'm not even sure that this movie, "Tai Chi Zero," even made out your way, but if you like well choreographed martial arts with whimsy and a silly sense of sweetness, then go to Amazon because "Tai Chi Zero" is available to stream.

If you've gone to Chinese movies, you'll be used to subtitles, even if you speak and read Chinese. That's because the spoken language is what keeps the Chinese apart while the written language mostly unifies them (despite the more recent developments of jiantizi 简体字 (pinyin: jiǎntǐzì) and fantizi 繁體字 (pinyin: Fántǐzì)). Director/writer Stephen Fung in his fourth feature film uses subtitles like footnotes and not the dry intellectual type. You don't have to be an expert on kung fu flicks to appreciate this amazing cast because the subtitles tell you who and what these people are. Fung's styles fuses Chinese movie subtitles, with graphic novel and web design.

The martial arts here is the real thing. Although newcomer Yuan has the fresh-faced eagerness of a golden retriever puppy, he was the 2008 Olympic Games Wushu gold medalist. "Tai Chi Zero" is about a young man Yang Lu Chan (Jayden Yuan or Yuan Xiaochao), born under difficult circumstances that are played out in black and white and with a heavy dose of slapstick humor. In "Tai Chi Zero," Yuan is called "The Freak" because he has a little bump on his upper forehead. When that spot is pushed he gets eye-blazing white mad and pretty much unstoppable.
Yang grows up fighting under Zhao Kanping (Fung Hak On) of the Divine Truth forces.  Yang becomes a martial arts master of the exterior forms but must seek out the interior forms because that freakish bump is changing color and if he doesn't learn interior peace, he will die.

Yang travels to Chen Village to learn this special form of martial arts, but because of an old curse, the villagers are forbidden to teach outsiders the Chen form. Yang determinedly continues to throw himself into the village and in each case, he's defeated by men, women and even kids. Each time, however, he learns through imitation.

Yuniang (Angelababy), the daughter of Master Chen, begins to notice him, but not in a romantic sense.

The village is threatened by the designs of the evil the British in the form of the East India Company. The East India Company is in cahoots with Yuniang's fiancé, Fang Zijin (Eddie Peng). Fang dresses in European clothes and hopes to bring electricity to the village. The East India Company is also determined to bring the railroad through China and right through Chen Village.

In an American Western movie, villages wanted the railroad to come through in hopes it would bring more people and more civilization. But that probably wasn't the sentiment of the Native Americans who saw the railroads bringing hoards more people to steal their land. So let's not think that Chen Village is exactly against progress, they might not want to Westernize and become pawns of the East India Company.

When Fang's electrical exhibition fails to impress, the East India Company brings out a special weapon: A woman named Claire (Mandy Lieu) and her steam-punky weapon of mass destruction--a crude dome-shaped tank.

"Tai Chi Zero" was nominated for several awards, including a nomination for the Golden Horse Award for Best Action Choreography (Sammo Hung Kam-bo) and Best Makeup & Costume Design (Timmy Yip), and the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Action Choreography, Best Art Direction, Best Cstume & Make Up design and Best Visual Effects.

I'm going to have to backtrack here. I didn't catch Fung's 2004 "Enter the Phoenix" or the 2005 "House of Fury" or the 2009 "Jump."  Fung is a writer on those three movies. Before that, he was an actor, making his debut in the 1990 "Forbidden Nights" as the child who grows up to become the protagonist.  So I don't know how representative "Tai Chi Zero" is of his work.

Both my husband and I found it light-hearted fun and indulged our taste for Asian steam punk. We went backwards. Having seen and enjoyed the second movie in this trilogy, "Tai Chi Hero," we found "Tai Chi Zero" on Amazon.com and watched it the same day. I recommend you do it in the order it was meant to be seen.