Taekwondo (跆拳道)(2003)

Taekwondo (跆拳道)

Dir: Sai Fu, Lisi Mai

Cast: Tao Hung, Wu Di, Han Qing, Yu Cheng Hui

Plot: The movie tells the story of Liu (Tao Hung) and Yang Hui (Wu Di), two girls who grew up together since childhood A childhood spent in an old chinese village in the countryside,where they practised chinese martial arts with their old shifu (Yu Cheng Hui). To them martial arts wasn't just an hobby, it was something that they felt inside, and that's why they both joined the national Taekwondo team.The goal is the Sidney Olympics 2000..just one of them will reach it....

Year: 2003

Country: Mainland China 

Trailer (Edit by us (source Official Mainland dvd): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSkwADNhkF8

Notes: The movie has been released in China with english subtitles [by GZbeauty], and in Taiwan (dvd and vcd) without english subs. Please pay attention on what you buy, because in China they released two version of the dvd, one with and one without eng subs. As far as the directors is concerned, Sai Fu directed the history-war movie called Going East To Native Land (东归英雄传)(1993) in which starred also the well-known martial artist Cheng-Hui Yu (于承惠).  

Personal opinion:It's a mainstream movie about a special event occured in a specific moment [other examples are the korean movies "Forever the moment" and "Lifting Kingkong" and the chinese "Women Soccer Team"], where the main theme is sacrifices and frienship in order to achive something bigger. During the movie you will see heavy trainings [chinese martial arts (wushu) and taekwondo] really well-made in terms of coreography. Of course this movie has some flaws like the last match in Sidney..well..just pay attention at the 2 athletes ..there is something wrong.... but damn, that training on the iced lake is just priceless.. A good movie for a brainoff evening, nothing to scream about, just a decent movie. PS: this one is the last recent movie we're going to put on this blog.

Some snapshots (source: official mainland dvd):