Nothing’s built to scale in the romantic Chinese martial arts drama “Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants,” a new adaptation of Louis “Jin Yong” Cha’s genre-defining wuxia (or “martial arts and chivalry”) source novel. This is the kind of giant-sized mainland production that, from the start, occasions some compromises given its sheer scale. It’s also pretty hard to adapt, let alone carve out a movie-sized narrative from Cha’s books, given how sprawling and episodic they tend to be. This one, like a few others, is an action-romance about two fated lovers who struggle to keep a group of feuding tribes from tearing each other apart, all while exemplifying the sort of righteous unorthodoxy that only seemed rebellious and original when Louis Cha first did it.
Cha’s novels are primo power fantasies, filled with prose that would give Stan Lee’s carnival barker Shakespeare a run for its money, as well as an inflexible dedication to their protagonists’ strident principles. This new version of “Legend of the Condor Heroes” is faithful to a fault. We follow a deep bench of Chinese knights and brigands who occasionally lapse into florid declarations like, “Great Khan, ill tidings” and “I would fain not see you anymore.” When they fight, it’s usually on a battlefield filled with variably composited extras. Sometimes, the main characters break away to attack each other with comic book fighting techniques like the “Toad Miasma” or the “Dragon Quake.”
That all being said, “Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants” begins and ends as a love story. Guo Jing (Xiao Zhan), a Song clan foundling raised among the Mongols by his widowed mother (Ada Choi), falls for free-spirited Huang Rong (Zhuang Dafei), who refuses to be defined by her villainous father, Heretic East (not in this picture). Guo loves Huang because she doesn’t like “tedious rules” (her words) either. They happen to live in “times of turmoil” (his words) though, so they try to keep an unsteady peace between the Mongol horde, led by Guo Jing’s adopted father Genghis Khan (Baya’ertu), and the nefarious occupying Jin Dynasty. Meanwhile, the deranged martial arts expert Venom West (Tony Leung Ka-fai) goes on a tear while searching for the Novem Scripture, which he believes will make him invincible. A conflict between him and Guo Jing inevitably overtakes the Mongols vs. Jin dynasty plot.
American audience members may be off-put by the inflexible cadences and rhythms of “Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants,” not to mention the drama’s focus on psychologically simple archetypes who, by now, might seem a bit staid. Thankfully, director Tsui Hark has more experience and is generally better than most Hong Kong filmmakers when it comes to this sort of pseudo-traditional Chinese collaboration. It’s the closest thing that Tsui will make to a Marvel movie. Big emotions exchanged by larger-than-life characters conceived on a big enough scale that it occasionally eclipses its ungainly plot’s hard emotional core.
“Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants” features several moments where Tsui’s investment and understanding of Cha’s deep bench of characters shines through, like when he has the messianic Guo sheepishly admits to Huang, “I have no idea what it is to like someone.” You can also see the veteran filmmaker struggle to translate Cha’s big-hearted melodrama to screen whenever Guo and Huang proclaim their love for each other: “This land is vast. I shall not lose you again!” Being goofy but serious about it is a fine enough combination, but only when there’s an equivalent level of conceptual commitment to whatever syrupy sentiments are being floated. Tsui mostly gets there, though there are more than a few more lulls in the action and the story’s forward momentum.
For proof of why “Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants” mostly works despite Tsui’s literal-minded approach, see the big climactic battle between Guo Jing and Venom West. It starts with starch-stiff smack talk between colorfully dressed side characters—the Mongolians and Venom West—accompanied by a rousing and somewhat treacly orchestral score. Then Guo and Huang exchange some equally inflexible expository dialogue to hype up what’s about to happen and establish the stakes. Finally, there’s some appropriately grandiose computer-generated combat.
Tsui didn’t need to make this movie, but it’s obvious that he did. “Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants” often looks like a personal project that was stretched out of proportion to accommodate whoever had enough money to accommodate the filmmaker’s vision. Thankfully, his adaptation has enough of its source material’s puffed-up grandeur, so you don’t have to squint to see the movie he had in mind. The battle scenes are grand, the martial arts fights are fleet and impressive, and the romantic drama is taken seriously enough. It’s a bit of a headache, but “Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants” still has its cornball charms.
