General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Once Upon a Time in China IV (黄飞鸿之四：王者之风)

Once Upon a Time in China IV (黄飞鸿之四：王者之风; Cantonese: Wong je ji fung) is a 1993 Hong Kong martial arts film directed by Yuen Bun and the fourth entry in the Once Upon a Time in China series begun by Tsui Hark. Vincent Zhao takes over the role of the Cantonese martial-arts hero Wong Fei-hung from Jet Li, and the story centers on an Eight Nation Alliance lion-dance challenge and the nationalist Red Lantern Sect in late Qing Beijing.¹

Key fact	Detail
Director and action director	Yuen Bun, who had choreographed the action in the third film¹^•²
Writers	Tsui Hark and Elsa Tang Bik-yin (Tang Pik-yin)¹
Producers	Tsui Hark and Ng See-yuen¹
Lead cast	Vincent Zhao (Wong Fei-hung), Jean Wang (Fourteenth Aunt May), Max Mok (Leung Foon), Xiong Xin-xin (Clubfoot Seven), Lau Shun (Wong Kei-ying), Billy Chow, Chin Ka-lok¹
Format	Cantonese, color, 2.39:1, 101 minutes (listed as 102 minutes on some Chinese databases)¹^•³
Hong Kong box office	HK$11,189,826, ranking 39th for the year⁴

Spoilers

Plot

The story is set in the late Qing dynasty, when the Eight Nation Alliance, backed by its ships and guns, pressures China and organizes an eight-nation lion-dance team to challenge the country. To defend national prestige, the Qing court invites Wong Fei-hung, the "Chinese Lion King" and a boxer from Foshan, Guangdong, to compete in Beijing.⁶

While preparing for the contest, Wong witnesses the Red Lantern Sect, a group fighting under the slogan "support the Qing, destroy the foreign," burning foreign buildings. To protect bystanders he helps fight the fire, and the sect's senior disciple Miu San mistakes him for a traitor helping the foreigners; the two fight before German troops arrest them both, and a Western priest, Father Thomas, secretly frees them.⁶ At the lion-dance contest, the Eight Banners general Alan Chengdu fights the allied lion teams and dies; the crowd, humiliated by the defeat, grows angrier at the foreigners. Wong then leads the martial artists of the capital in a rematch and wins the Lion King title, but as the crowd celebrates, the Eight Nation Alliance armies enter Beijing, and Wong decides to return south.⁶ The film's most quoted line sums up the outcome: "We won a competition, but lost the whole country."³

Production and the change of lead

The film marks the first Wong Fei-hung production on which Tsui Hark did not work with Jet Li. According to the Chinese film database 1905.com, Tsui moved to the producer's role after a growing pay dispute with Li, and he chose Vincent Zhao, a wushu champion, as Li's successor; the film was also Zhao's first time carrying a film as the lead actor.³ A 2005 Sina interview with Tsui confirms that from Wong je ji fung onward he served as producer rather than director.⁵

Yuen Bun, who had choreographed the action of the third film, served as both director and action director.² For the film's aerial lion-dance sequences the crew hired professional lion-dance stunt doubles, but Zhao spent two days learning the lion-dance techniques from the doubles so he could perform the scenes himself.³

Action and style

According to Criterion's synopsis, the fourth film reduces the comedy and romance featured in the series' first three installments, replacing them with nearly nonstop kung-fu action; Criterion deems it the leanest and meanest entry and singles out a fight staged on a field of falling, domino-style planks.¹ The reviewer at Far East Films judged Zhao the physical equal of Jet Li in wushu and acrobatic ability, while noting that the choreography is not as slick as the second film's because Yuen Wo-ping was not involved; he rated the film four stars out of five but called the finale a letdown.⁷

Reception and place in the series

Critical responses have generally ranked the film below the Jet Li trilogy. The Asian Film Strike review calls it an entertaining but forgettable installment on a smaller scale, whose story rehashes the second film's plot with the Red Lantern Sect replacing the White Lotus Sect; it praises Zhao's martial-arts grace and Xiong Xin-xin's humorous performance but criticizes the drawn-out lion-dance scenes and the underused villains played by Chin Kar-Lok and Billy Chow.² A 2021 review on The 14 Amazons calls it the low point of the series, a tired rehash that adds nothing new apart from the Fourteenth Aunt character.⁸ By contrast, the 1905.com editorial note judges the film carefully made, with lively action scenes and a story that maintains the standard and style of the earlier Wong Fei-hung films.³

The film's commercial performance also fell short of its predecessors: its Hong Kong gross of HK$11,189,826 placed it 39th for the year.⁴ A retrospective account of Tsui Hark's Film Workshop states that the later Wong Fei-hung sequels released after the third film, including Wong je ji fung, fell far short of the first three films in quality, reputation, and box office.⁹ In the Criterion Collection's complete-films box set, the film is presented with a monaural Cantonese soundtrack and optional English subtitles, and the set's reviewer scored it 6 out of 10, below the 7 given to each of the first three films.¹⁰

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026