Variosity Vault

Fearless, also known as Huo Yuanjia (霍元甲) in Chinese, as Spirit in Japan and as Jet Li's Fearless in the United Kingdom and the United States, is a 2006 martial arts film directed by Ronny Yu, starring Jet Li. A Hong Kong-Chinese co-production, it is loosely based on the life of Huo Yuanjia, a Chinese martial artist who challenged foreign fighters in highly publicized events, restoring pride and nationalism to China at a time when Western, Russian and Japanese imperialism were eroding the country in the final years of the Qing dynasty before the birth of the Republic of China. Li stated that the film was his last wushu martial arts film, a point also made in the film's television promotions and other publicity, although he would do action films with martial arts in them and did not rule out historical epics with martial arts. Fearless was released on 26 January 2006 in Hong Kong, on 23 June 2006 in the United Kingdom, and on 22 September 2006 in the United States.