“Jet Li’s Fearless” is the story of Huo Yuanjia (Jet Li), founder of the Jin Wu Sports Federation.

This movie shows Yuanjia’s lust for being a champion fighter, which started with his first defeat as a small child.

The defeat causes the main character to work to become a great fighter and eventually struggle through pride. Through this journey Yuanjia learns how to fight with honor and respect.

Sticking to this formula allows for two things, very impressive fight scenes and a boring rest of a movie. Li’s character begins his fighting career selfishly and disrespectfully. Because of this, he loses many of the things that he loves.

These losses trigger almost all of the growth his character has, because he runs away and ends up living in a rural village. He meets a girl in this village who teaches him how to respect everything in his environment.

This story has been done so many times before that halfway through the movie one may find themselves thinking about how bored they are.

If it were not for cool scenes of guys kicking each others’ butta, this movie would have almost nothing to offer.

The best part of the movie has to be seeing Li do things that make someone seriously question if what just happened was real. There are moves clearly done with fly wires but then there are some could be done without them. For those who love watching a movie for the fight scenes, this movie is perfect. If only one just could fast-forward through the unneeded dialogue.

A martial arts movie should focus on the main reason people watch it — the martial arts. This movie had too much time in between fight scenes.

It may be considered cynical to approach the movie this way, but who really goes to a martial arts movie for the amazing plot?

This movie would have been much better if it had stuck to what a martial arts movie is good at —martial arts.

Chris Schimmel is an entertainment reporter for the Northern Star.