Film Review: Once Upon a Time in China IV 黃飛鴻之四王者之風 (1993) - Hong Kong
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia)
I rated it 8/10
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★
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Vincent Zhao steps into the shoes of Wong Fei-hung and does not stumble. That alone is no small achievement. After Jet Li walked away from the series, Tsui Hark’s grand patriotic martial-arts saga could easily have collapsed. Instead, Once Upon a Time in China IV finds a new rhythm. Zhao is leaner, more grounded, less mythic than Li, and that works in the film’s favor. His Wong Fei-hung feels like a man still learning how heavy the legend sits on his shoulders.
The story returns to familiar ground: foreign encroachment, local pride, and the endless friction between tradition and the modern world. Missionaries, merchants, and a fierce women’s Red Lantern group all collide in late-Qing Guangdong. The plot does not reinvent the series, and at times it circles the same themes we have seen before. Yet the film moves with such clean energy that the familiarity becomes comforting rather than tired.
The action is the real pleasure. Zhao’s wushu background is on full display. The choreography is sharp, the camera rarely loses the bodies in motion, and several sequences (especially those involving the Red Lantern fighters) crackle with invention. Xiong Xin-xin, once again playing Clubfoot, remains a joy—half comic relief, half lethal threat. Max Mok’s “Bucktooth” So continues to provide the series’ lighter heart without tipping into pure slapstick.
What the film lacks is the soaring ambition of the first two entries. There is no single sequence that lodges in the memory the way the ladder fight or the final confrontation of Part I did. The political undercurrents feel thinner. Tsui Hark seems content to deliver a solid, entertaining chapter rather than a statement. And yet, within those more modest aims, the film succeeds. It is handsome, well-paced, and carried by a central performance that earns the right to wear the master’s robe.
For anyone who has followed Wong Fei-hung across the earlier films, this fourth chapter is not essential, but it is genuinely enjoyable. It keeps the flame alive without pretending the fire is as high as it once was. That honesty is part of its charm. (Neo, 2026)