05-05-2016, 08:22 AM
If you get the chance, try to get the DVD and watch the extras. I believe there's an interview with Kara Hui.
Two things always come to mind with that movie. First, the wonderful character-building scene right at the start. Kara Hui is on a boat with lots of poor peasants. She sits across from a mother with a baby in her arms. The mother is so worn out from work that she's falling asleep, and the baby starts to tumble from her lap. Kara catches the baby with lightning reflexes, then puts the baby back in the mother's lap, not waking her, because the mother desperately needs sleep -- and spends the rest of the trip wordlessly watching over mother and baby. The mother never knows.
That scene doesn't last for more than 20 or 30 seconds, if I recall, but it's a masterpiece of character-building.
The other thing I recall comes from the interview with Kara Hui in the extras. She had an appendectomy just before shooting began. For that first fight when she's on the cart, there were concerns she might rip out her stitches. That scene is ghastly to watch in hindsight of knowing she'd just had surgery. All those lightning high kicks and what-not -- WTF!
Two things always come to mind with that movie. First, the wonderful character-building scene right at the start. Kara Hui is on a boat with lots of poor peasants. She sits across from a mother with a baby in her arms. The mother is so worn out from work that she's falling asleep, and the baby starts to tumble from her lap. Kara catches the baby with lightning reflexes, then puts the baby back in the mother's lap, not waking her, because the mother desperately needs sleep -- and spends the rest of the trip wordlessly watching over mother and baby. The mother never knows.
That scene doesn't last for more than 20 or 30 seconds, if I recall, but it's a masterpiece of character-building.
The other thing I recall comes from the interview with Kara Hui in the extras. She had an appendectomy just before shooting began. For that first fight when she's on the cart, there were concerns she might rip out her stitches. That scene is ghastly to watch in hindsight of knowing she'd just had surgery. All those lightning high kicks and what-not -- WTF!