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The Matrix Reloaded goes deep Kung Fu with it's Homage to "Heroes of the East"
A continuation of pages created by my girl on The Matrix Trilogy. Here she covers The Matrix Reloaded, and continues to school us classic Kung Fu fans on the relevance of these modern day movies influenced by KungFu. You can refer to her as Kung Fu Scorpionetta. -Kung Fu Scorpion The Matrix Reloaded Hi everyone, Glad to be back with " The Matrix Reloaded ". I just love this movie. Many people have written it off and I feel sad for them because they are seriously missing out. This is one action packed movie! With much more Kung Fu than " The Matrix ". 
Woo Ping let out all the stops. And with all the training these actors have accumulated to this point, it really shows.
Again, Carrie Ann Moss kicks us off with some amazing Kung Fu showing off that brilliant Scorpion kick that Woo Ping choreographed as her signature move. Hot stuff!
" The Matrix Reloaded " can be summed up by the line Keanu uses when fighting his advanced Kung Fu against a few Agents who aren't so easily defeated this time... "Hmm, upgrades". This whole movie is an upgrade from the last one. Better fights, more action and deeper plot. (but only if you choose to go down the rabbit hole)Okay, so for myself I will touch on the story outside the Kung Fu. Here we have Neo fully grown as his super hero self, marked by the fact that inside the Matrix he does "his Superman thing".
In this city humans live, love, breed and apparently have some kick ass technology. The Zion Control is a brilliant upgrade of the control hub in "Empire Strikes Back". But I digress. 
Even though Neo is more confident in who he is, doubt about what he is supposed to do still permeates. And now, Morpheus has his own doubts for the first time ever. Neo's status in Zion is that of 'saviour'. This reminds me of how in " Ip Man " Ip Man was put on a pedestal by the townspeople because of his amazing abilities. Regardless Neo, like Ip Man, tries to point out to one of his fans that "You found me, I didn't find you.... You saved yourself". This philosophy is right on par with the Buddhist philosophy used in most Kung Fu movies.
Anyhooo, it turns out Zion is going to be under attack by the machines in 72 hours and the numbers of sentinels is so great it looks grim for the humans. 
The only hope seems to be Neo but no one knows how or why. So he has to see the Oracle to find out what next. This is when he meets Seraph, played by Collin Chou, and they have a terrific fight scene! at the end of which Seraph states "you do not truly know someone until you fight them". So the oracle tells Neo he has to return to the Source but first needs to find the Keymaker to get there. (that sniffs of Ghostbusters a little bit LOL!)
Part in the flesh and part CG (remember this was cutting edge technology for the year it was made) the choreography for this is unparalleled! Woo Ping says it was his mission to create this fight without having any agent appear to be waiting to attack. 
And he succeeds! It is a non-stop barrage of agents which forces Neo's fighting be highly creative! Woo Ping was limited in the Flesh by Keanu's speed, even though his Kung Fu has improved tremendously for The Matrix Reloaded, it's still not at the speed of someone studying for 15yrs.
Luckily this limitation balances out nicely with the CG where there are no limitations and Woo Ping gets to release the choreography beast that lays within.And I for one barely take a breath for this whole fight. I'm exhausted everytime I watch it! It's relentless! and most enjoyable. This is followed up by an awesome homage to "Heroes of the East" When after finding the Keymaker, played by Randall Duk Kim from "Kung Fu Panda" 
Neo faces off with one of the Big Bosses of the Matrix, the Merovingian. And in the foyer of his mansion a brilliant fight sequence takes place that is reminiscent of
Gordon Liu's
big fight in "Heroes of the East" when he's in his gym and he uses every Chinese Martial Art weapon possible.
Here Woo Ping recreates it for Keanu Reeves to play out. Littering the foyer with all the favorite martial arts weaponry fans love. And I think it is done quite brilliantly with an amazing use of levels and changing up weapons that we never get a chance to be bored. Well done Woo Ping!And Kudos go to Keanu Reeves for doing his own fighting and stunts in this sequence. For only a couple of years worth of Kung Fu training he does brilliantly, and deserves great respect! 
I am now focusing much on the fighting but there is a lot to the story revealed here... going deeper into finding out more about the Matrix and what it really involves. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, I will skip the plot. But know that I think it is written flawlessly with amazing philosophy tying it all together. The next genius Kung Fu fighting scene is with Laurence Fishburne on the top of a big rig! Seriously a big rig. Unbelievable and riveting. At least it had me on the edge of my seat the first few times I watched this movie, cause I had never seen anything like it.
Many things that The Matrix Trilogy accomplished with its story, special effects, stunts (eg. the car chase sequence shot in live action, not CG), and fighting has since been copied and attempted but I still think it holds its own even with all the time that has passed. It is an original template built on the legendary Kung Fu movies, Sci Fi movies and comic books of old. 
The Matrix Reloaded story continues with Neo confronting another Big Boss, learning some new truths, returning to the 'real world' and telling his crew that everything they knew up til that point was a lie.The movie ends with Neo discovering his powers extend beyond the Matrix and it costs him tremendously to use them. This movie for me is like "Empire Strikes Back" in terms of jam packed action and storyline. With a cliff hanger ending that when I first saw this movie in the theatre and walked out, i immediately bought another ticket and watched it again on the spot. Juicy!!! and so we move on to the finally of The Matrix Trilogy. But I'm gonna take another week before I tackle that page. I hope you enjoyed this one. - Kung Fu Scorpionetta OTHER PAGES YOU WILL LOVE: |
We also meet, for the first time, the other members of Zion's military. Zion being the city where Humans who have escaped the Matrix have built a society. The city resides deep below the surface of the earth where the machines can't get too, yet.
The Buddhist philosophy permeates The Matrix Reloaded and is also highlighted in Morpheus' confrontation with Commander Lock. The Commander says "Goddammit Morpheus, not everyone believes what you believe!" and Morpheus replies "My beliefs do not require them to." Oh yeah baby!!
But then comes the most epic Kung Fu fighting sequence ever done. Neo against 100+ Agent Smiths, all played by Hugo Weaving. Even Woo Ping himself marveled over the challenge and fun it was to create this sequence.