‘Once Upon a Time’ Gets Twice Retold

Tsui Hark’s “Once Upon a Time in China” returns to the Nuart Friday through Monday with a new 35-milli-meter print, and at 2 hours, 14 minutes, is 22 minutes longer than the U.S.-release version. A martial arts epic directed and co-written by a master of the genre, this 1991 release is said to be the 99th retelling of the exploits of Wong Fei-Hung. This historical figure, a Canton physician and proponent of Chinese independence, became a folk hero in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

As a period action picture, this Golden Harvest production has everything: a DeMille-esque sense of spectacle; dazzling displays of martial arts combat; handsome production design; superb color cinematography; a rousing score; and an affable hero in Jet Li’s Wong.

Wong’s clinic-cum-martial-arts academy is located in Canton at a time when foreign incursions into China are escalating rapidly, corrupting its government and exploiting its people. In defense, Wong has assembled a small band of loyal followers into a local militia, which is constantly running afoul of the new commander of the regional army. He perceives a threat to his authority and to his lucrative relationships with the foreigners, especially the Americans, busily luring impoverished Chinese into virtual slavery with promises of riches in California’s gold fields.

Typically, Hong Kong action pictures, whether contemporary or period pieces, combine derring-do and bloodshed with broad comedy, and this film is no exception. What is exceptional lies in Hark’s ability to depict comic-book adventures with visual panache. Wong and his rowdy band emerge as uncomplicated men whose cause nevertheless raises complex, contradictory issues of national sovereignty and cultural identity that are as timely for China today as they were a century ago.

Hark’s rousing “Once Upon a Time in China II” (at the Nuart Tuesday through next Thursday) is more a true sequel than most Hong Kong series pictures, which tend to be self-contained; in short, it’s a big help to have seen the first film. This qualification aside, “China II” is a terrific example of dealing with history within a martial arts fantasy context.

It’s 1895, a turbulent time in the rapidly waning Manchu Dynasty. China has just lost Taiwan to Japan, and in Canton the ever-expanding mystical martial arts White Lotus sect declares its intent to free the poor but concentrates on driving all foreigners out of China.

The Chinese had plenty of justification, but Hark and his co-writers take a progressive view, condemning xenophobia and realizing it would be good for the nation to come to terms with the modern world. A century later the issues the film raises are still pertinent. Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West L.A. (310) 478-6379.

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LACMA’s “Seeing With Borrowed Eyes: The Films of Abbas Kiarostami” concludes this weekend with “Close-Up” (1990), which screens Friday at 7:30 p.m. It’s an exploration of fantasy and reality about an unemployed man mistaken for renowned Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf and carried away by this new identity to the extent of involving an entire family in a phony film project.

It will be followed by one of Makhmalbaf’s own films, the somewhat similar “A Moment of Innocence” (1996), a reconstruction of a real-life incident involving Makhmalbaf, who, as a teenager, stabbed a young policeman during a botched attempt to steal the officer’s gun. Makhmalbaf spent five years behind bars until he was freed after the Islamic revolution. Ironically, the policeman he stabbed 20 years earlier showed up in 1994 when Makhmalbaf was looking for nonactors for his next film; the filmmaker cast the policeman in “Moment of Innocence.”

The final film in the series, “Through the Olive Trees,” was the winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. It is about an illiterate bricklayer hired by a movie director to play an illiterate bricklayer married to a literate, independent woman--only to fall in love with the woman playing the fictional bricklayer’s wife. It screens Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Bing Theater, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. (323) 857-6177.

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Loretta Young plays the adopted daughter of Pagliacci-like circus performer Lon Chaney in the 1928 “Laugh, Clown, Laugh,” which screens tonight at the Silent Movie, 611 N. Fairfax Ave., L.A., in the concluding weekend of its Chaney retrospective. Typically, Chaney conceals his passionate love for Young, who’s attracted to a younger man, in this enduringly effective film, directed by Herbert Brenon and marking Young’s first important role.

One of the silent era’s great collaborations was Chaney and director Tod Browning, both masters of revealing pathos in the grotesque. Screening Friday, Saturday and Sunday is one of their finest efforts, “West of Zanzibar” (1928), in which Chaney plays a stage magician left paralyzed in a fight with his wife’s lover (Lionel Barrymore). (323) 655-2520.

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“Boys to Men,” a compilation of four gay-themed shorts, three of which screened at Outfest 2000, opens Friday at the Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., L.A. Three are outstanding.

Phillip J. Bartell’s sensitive yet amusing “Crush” is a fine example of traditional screen narrative. Spending the summer helping out--more or less--in his grandmother’s small-town dry-goods store is daydreaming 16-year-old Robbie (Brett Chukerman), who attracts precocious 12-year-old Tina (Ena A. Tuennerman). A friendship develops when Robbie agrees to accompany Tina when she practices her clarinet; not surprisingly, Tina develops a “crush” on this “older man” who would rather spend time with her than play sports. Eventually, Tina discovers Robbie is gay, and what makes this film effective is its persuasive depiction of how this 12-year-old copes with it.

Duncan Tucker’s “The Mountain King” is a sexy, sly vignette in which a streetwise hustler (Paul Dawson) zeros in on a rather square and naive young man (John Sloan), who’s reading a book on a beach and who proves not as straight as he says he is.

Carl Pfirman’s “The Confession” is a poignant story, beautifully told. Tom Fitzpatrick’s Caesar and Bert Kraemer’s Joseph are a gay couple who’ve been together for decades, but now that Joseph is fatally stricken with cancer he asks for a priest. Caesar understandably resents and resists this request because of the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to gay relationships; Fitzpatrick’s Caesar gradually comes to understand that his lover’s desire to make peace with his God and religion of his youth does not mean that he’s invalidating his lover and their long-standing commitment.

Filmmaker Dan Castle has said his intention in making his exceedingly brief “ . . . lost.” was made as a warning against unprotected sex, especially accompanied with drug-taking, but considering the graphic nature of his film and the physical attractiveness of his actors (Rich Eichelberger, Wayne Dawson), his film may be sending a different message. (323) 848-3500.