With 47 Ronin coming up before long, the cinemas are going to be chock full of Keanu Reeves. The actor’s directorial debut, Man of Tai Chi, will be coming to iTunes first, and then theatres in November. Today, we have the latest trailer for the film, featuring Reeves and martial arts master Tiger Chen (who also did stunt work on The Matrix films and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).
Chen plays the titular character, a man drawn into underground MMA bloodsport fighting by Donaka Mark (Reeves), looking to exploit his spectacular ability as a – you guessed it! – man of Tai Chi. It’s a simple and pretty well-worn premise – fighter gets drawn into underworld, must eventually rediscover his honor – but gets points for already showcasing some pretty spectacular martial arts action. This trailer gives us a few blips of fight scenes, all of them impressive, and a few more shots of Keanu Reeves emoting, or something akin to that.
On the whole, Man of Tai Chi doesn’t look half bad. While the plot might seem a bit thin, at least on first inspection, the fighting could more than make up for it. It’s been awhile since we’ve had a truly stellar martial arts film and now we seem to be getting a number of them (The Grandmaster, for instance). Whether this will cement Reeves as a director to watch is anyone’s guess, but the trailer at least does not seem to indicate that he’s screwed anything up.
Man of Tai Chi is right now running the festival circuit, showing at Fantastic Fest and TIFF, but will hit iTunes on September 28. Then it comes to US theatres November 1, hopefully with a lot of critical praise in tow.
You can watch the trailer for Man of Tai Chi and check out the latest poster below. Let us know what you think about the action in the comments. Do you think Reeves has dropped the ball on this one?
