|||||| The Planet of Great Moviez ||||||||: Xanda (2004)

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Xanda (2004)

Xanda is producer Tsui Hark's attempt to bring the sport of Sanda or San Shou to the big screen. It's a relatively new sport started in China as a way for Wushu practitioners to engage in full contact matches. Thus, rather than the acrobatic and traditional forms as practiced by actors Jet Li and Wu Jing, San Shou experts employ a less-flowery mix of kickboxing, boxing, and throws. It's an intense martial art that possesses practical self defense value, but competitors are limited by boxing gloves and rules prohibiting grappling and other ground techniques. The movie is starred by actual Xanda fighters.

imdb info [/center]
Wushu expert Qiang (Sang Wei-Lin) leaves his hometown in the country and heads for bigger things in the city. Jobs are hard to come by but Qiang comes to see a new path in martial arts when he squares off with Xanda champion Zhao (Teng Jun). He ends up losing and in the skirmish surrounding this fight, his friend ends up in hospital with a juicy bill to boot. Qiang wants and now also needs to join Coach Tieh's (Zhang Hong-Jun) Xanda school but his confidence is not fitting for the discipline, making him greatly lose his first tournament match. It all comes down to discovering yourself through a devotion to Xanda or to girlfriend Ning (Ni Jing-Yang)...

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