Japanese Master Fumio: “What style is that?”
Chen Zhen: “Don’t worry, I’ll show you.”
From Fist of Legend

Fist of Legend was made in 1994, directed by Gordon Chan and featuring fight choreography by Yuen Woo-ping (of The Matrix fame), and produced by and starring Jet Li.  Its a remake Bruce Lee’s 1971 film Fist of Fury.

Many of the key elements of the fight scenes for The Matrix were lifted from this film.  In this fight, Jet fights veteran Japanese action star Kurata Yasuaki (Eastern Condors).  The cool thing about this movie fight (and this movie) is that the fighters discuss and analyze fighting strategies and techniques while they are fighting.

I wish I could clearly remember the details now but I saw this first on a VHS tape (badly) dubbed and subtitled.  Then later I saw the nice version released in the Hong Kong explosion to US video in the mid 2000s (after Jackie Chan became a star in the US).  The discussions about fighting in this Fumio-Chen Zhen fight were different.  In one, they discuss timing and in the other they discussed angle – something like that.  Both discussions were informed.

In Fist of Legend, the lead character keeps learning to become a better and better fighter as the film goes on, learning from each fight, like Kenichi or almost like Groundhog Day (one of my favorite films).