Extremely disappointing...

I bought this based on the strength of the ratings and reviews on Amazon.com and IMDB.com and because legendary Hong-Kong kung-fu director/choreographer Yuen Woo Ping (fight choreographer of Fearless, Kill Bill, The Matrix, Iron Monkey, Crouching Tigger, Drunken Master, etc) was attached to the project. Unfortunately, it turned out to be as bad as any 70's chopsocky garbage.

"The Tai Chi Master" was apparently a dozen-plus hour miniseries in China where it first aired on television, and you can tell. The production values are no-budget and the plot is incoherent due to the huge chunks cut from the series to make it fit on a 2-hour dvd.

This could all be forgiven if the kung-fu was brilliant, but it's not. It's undercranked garbage for the most part. Fights are very obviously sped up about 10%-15%, the editing is atrocious, and the camera is constantly jerking around making the action unnecessarily hard to follow.

Much is made of the "Game of Death" homage sequence where our hero must climb a seven level pagoda with a different master on each level, but the fights are too short, and mostly unremarkable.

Pass on this DVD, and get any one of a number of Woo Pings far superior efforts instead: Twin Warriors, Fist of Legend, Once Upon a Time in China, or the aforementioned Drunken Master.

4/10