Once Upon a Time in China · reception & legacy

1991 · Tsui Hark

How Once Upon a Time in China has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A smash in Hong Kong in 1991, it single-handedly relaunched the Wong Fei-hung legend and set off the early-90s kung fu revival; long stuck in the West in dubbed, chopped video editions, it's since been fully canonised — Criterion boxed the whole series in 2021.

What's debated

The eternal fan debate: is the original actually the peak, or does Part II (with the Donnie Yen showdown) outdo it — plus the purist grumble over wire-fu versus 'real' grounded kung fu.

Its footprint

The theme song 'A Man Should Better Himself' — James Wong's rework of the traditional tune 'General's Orders' — became shorthand for Wong Fei-hung across all of Chinese pop culture, and the ladder fight finale is one of the most referenced action set pieces in martial arts cinema.

Where it stands

A cornerstone of the Hong Kong canon and the standard 'start here' answer for anyone getting into Jet Li or 90s kung fu cinema.

★ Did you know? Tsui Hark was reviving an already record-setting icon: Kwan Tak-hing had played Wong Fei-hung in roughly 77 films from the 1940s onward, making the character one of the most-portrayed heroes in movie history before Jet Li ever put on the robe.