Oddity
(2024)

100 Yards 🥋 门前宝地

100 Yards follows the death a highly decorated martial arts master, and the succession of his wushu academy. The two vying to take over the academy are Qi, the masters top apprentice, and his son Shen - who believes he is the rightful heir.

This was like a bite sized snack of what could’ve been a delicious meal. The ingredients are all there: biter rivals, unrequited love, legacy, honour - there was so much potential.

What kept me invested was the aggressive elegance of marital artistry displayed in the early choreography of the fight scenes, but as I patiently waited for the next fight it would turn into this Rube Goldberg type hijinks, completely transitioning away from the steady combat scenes we started off with.

That’s when the story began to fly by the seam of its pants, especially with the way they handled the main characters motivations and how abruptly they would change. At that point it lost me.

There was clearly more emphasis put on the choreography of the limited fight scenes than the flow of the story, that it ends up becoming a sensationalized take on what should’ve become a classic wushu film.

There’s a good movie within 100 Yards, it just got lost trying to be everything, everywhere, all at once.

Enjoy!

5.5/10 🍿 🎥

Runtime: 1hr48mins
Where: Fantasia International Film Festival

100 Yards Review (2024) The Richmond Reviewer -  August 4th, 2024.