Ronnie Yu speaks about Jet Li and 'Fearless'

How he got involved in the project after working so many years in the States - “The producer (Bill Kong) called me up out of the blue asking me if I was interested in making another movie in Asia, and whether there was any particular actor I wanted to work with,” Yu recalled. “He was ecstatic when I mentioned Jet Li’s name, because he happened to have a script that was being written with Jet in mind at the time. As soon as he told me that, I decided to stop pre-production work on a movie I was doing in the US, packed my bags and came back to Asia to start work on Fearless.”

His thought on what kind of audience will enjoy the movie - “I think Fearless transcends location, culture and all other barriers. No matter where you’re from you will understand what this film is trying to tell you, which basically, is the life story of a great man – Huo Yuanjia.”

Praise for Jet's work on this film - “You can see very clearly what he is giving to this film both spiritually and physically. And frankly I was very, very impressed. To me, Jet Li is Huo Yuanjia,” he said.

The approach to the martial arts sequences, choreographed by Yuen Woo-Ping - “We decided very early on that we were not going to use too much wire work and do many ‘flying’ scenes, because it’s been used too much lately. Because Jet knows martial arts, we wanted instead to let the audience see him fighting for real,” Yu said.

He got a wee bit excited watching Jet perform Yuen's sequences one day - “I’ve never seen him fight this well before. One day we were shooting a long tracking shot of Jet showing off his martial arts in one long sequence. At the end of it I got so excited I stood up and cheered,” said Yu. “It was just so beautiful to see his total control over his movements and technique. I truly think no one else in the world could do this like he does.”

What the director hopes the audiences reaction to Fearless will be - “I strongly believe that movies need to be entertaining first and foremost, and I always put the audience on top of my list of people to please. Enjoyment comes first and if they learn a lesson from it, that would be a bonus. After all, I think that the highest form of filmmaking is when you can entertain as well as impart an important message to your audience at the same time,” he said.