July 06, 2021
Tiger Chen stars in Man of Tai Chi, a 2013 film directed by Keanu Reeves.
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Keanu Reeves’ directorial debut could have been a critical disaster. A bilingual martial arts movie set in mainland China and Hong Kong, it sounds, at best, like an ego trip and at worst like cultural appropriation.
But just as Reeves has always stood slightly apart from the rest of the Hollywood A-list, Man of Tai Chi is a Chinese-American co-production with a difference – the film is actually pretty good. It’s certainly hard to picture another Western star making such a movie with as little fuss and fanfare. Just imagine how boring it would be with Brad Pitt at the helm, or how bonkers with Nicolas Cage ?