It features action choreography by Yuen Woo-ping and was produced by Jet Li, who also stars in the lead role of Chen Zhen.

Set in the Shanghai International Settlement in 1914, Fist of Legend follows Chen as he investigates his old master Huo Yuanjia's death at the hands of the Imperial Japanese occupation forces.

[1] The film co-stars Chin Siu-ho, Yasuaki Kurata, Shinobu Nakayama, Billy Chow and Paul Chun.

The Japanese thugs' sensei, Fumio Funakoshi, who is also Mitsuko's uncle, arrives to take control of the situation and apologizes for his students' behavior.

Meanwhile, Akutagawa confronts General Fujita of the Imperial Japanese Army after suspecting that his match against Huo had been rigged, which he considers dishonorable.

After a heated argument, Fujita kills Akutagawa by breaking his back in front of the Japanese ambassador, and then places the blame on Chen.

Enraged by their master's death, Akutagawa's students attack the Jingwu School, culminating in a fight that is eventually stopped by the local police.

Mitsuko shows up and testifies that Chen is innocent because he spent the night with her, and the court accepts her false testimony because she is Japanese.

Chen and Mitsuko face hostility from the locals and are forced to take shelter in an abandoned hut near Huo Yuanjia's grave.

Chen expresses his willingness to accept the blame for Fujita's death in order to prevent war, earning the ambassador's further admiration.

[5] The English-dubbed U.S. release by Miramax and Buena Vista Distribution contains four specific mistranslations that drastically alter the meaning of the film as a whole.

With regard to footage, this version deletes the final moments of students training and contains a brand new set of opening (animated) and closing credits in English, abandoning the previous ones completely.

Compared to the Hong Kong version, the 106-minute Mandarin-dubbed Taiwanese version contains the following footage: In the Mandarin soundtracks of the film, there is background music when Chen fights Huo, but in the Cantonese soundtrack, the music only plays after Chen performs a Capoeira-style kick later on in the fight.

On 20 March 2002, the first official DVD of the Hong Kong version with a Cantonese soundtrack was issued by HKVideo in France, but it contained no English subtitles.

A lesser-known DVD was issued on 25 March 2005 by Japanese distributor Maxam which contains the Hong Kong version (and its ending text) in complete form, but no English subtitles.

German-issued DVDs from distributor 'New Age 21' and 'HMH' were released in November 2008 in an uncut state and contain a Cantonese soundtrack with English subtitles.

The Malaysian Speedy VCD also contains a similar version, but enforces cuts to some scenes for violence: The Spanish Manga Films DVD titled El Mejor Luchador (released on 24 October 2001) and a slightly edited Indian Diskovery VCD titled The Hitter: Fist of the Legend contain an English-dubbed version intended for export to English-speaking territories.