Legend of the Fist Movie TrailerDirector: Wai-keung Lau (Andrew Lau)

Writer: Gordon Chan

Cast: Donnie Yen; Qi Shu; Anthony Wong Chau-Sang; Qi Shu; Shawn yue

Kicking off the San Diego Asian Film Festival last fall, with its U.S. premiere, was Andrew Lau's Legend of the Fist, a high-flying, martial arts conglomeration of war film, chop-socky and gangland mafia story. The film is being billed (as the film's subtitle implies) as the follow-up to Bruce Lee's 1972 Fists of Fury and picks up ten years after that film ended as Chen Zhen (Donnie Yen) who has returned to China after fighting alongside the French in the trenches of Europe in World War I, brings some dark secrets from his past along with him. During the day, he's known as "Qi", and appears to be just another wealthy playboy. But at night, he patrols the streets as a masked warrior, determined to subvert the Japanese invasion while becoming entangled with the sultry Kiki (Played by Shu Qi), who has a dangerous secret of her own.

Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen is from Andrew Lau, the director of Infernal Affairs, a film many may know as the progenitor of Martin Scorcese's Oscar-winning The Departed, and features Chinese film star Donnie Yen, a Hong Kong martial arts star and action choreographer who is considered to be the current "go to" person for Hong Kong action films.

Must say the trailer looks clean and crisp, but you really have to be a fan of these over-the-top, chop-socky action flicks that feature the excessive usage of high wires, an abundance of jump cuts, and overly-dramatic moments of poignancy. Nothing wrong with those who do, but this one certainly looks like one of those flicks. And was that Cato?

A little Birdie told us Legend of the Fist contains a final-sequence homage to Bruce Lee that, as we can all imagine, reminds us not just anyone can be Bruce Lee... and apparently especially Donnie Yen. Birdie also says this is a shaky-cam hack job from a mainland China director trying to thump his chest with the Hong Kong greats. But we haven't seen the film, so we'll reserve judgment until it releases wider in the states.

In the meantime, enjoy the trailer below or pop on over to Apple and watch in the glory of HD.