Tak (Yuen Wah) was once a highly accomplished teacher of the Martial Arts but now he lives the quiet life as a Chinese medicinal practitioner, working from his shop in downtown Los Angeles.  When the teacher of the local Karate school (Trimble) decides to challenge Tak to a fight he is caught off guard by sheer numbers and badly injured.  A young girl comes to his aid but the language barrier provides unforeseen complications so while he heals, Tak's shop goes into disrepute.  When Tak's student Jet (Li) arrives in L.A. to visit his master he is confronted by a deserted shop but no sign of of Tak.  All alone in a big city with no grasp of English, it's up to Jet to track down his master and take revenge on the man who ruined his business.

After achieving notoriety with the 'Shaolin Temple' movies, Tsui Hark decided the way forward for Jet Li was to launch him in a modern day actioner marketed towards an international audience.  Sadly though, rather than showcasing his unique style of Hong Kong filmmaking, Hark gives 'The Master' a distinctly American approach with the use the over-familiar "new kid in town" storyline to create an image more suited to the 'Karate Kid' series.  To add insult to injury, the supporting cast (with the exception of the underused Yuen Wah) are some of the poorest performers available and they only succeed in lowering the overall tone of the film.  On the plus side, the film does succeed with some of it's action set-pieces, particularly the all action finale which takes place atop a skyscraper and allows Li to cut lose with flashes of his Wu Shu brilliance.

'The Master', like many before and after it, attempts to take the fast track towards  international success by copying a tried and tested formula.  However, with a non-existent script and seriously under-par actors, it was never really going to amount to anything more than a set of average fight sequences.  Unsurprisingly, upon completion the film was shelved for two years and then released on the back of the success of the 'Once Upon a time in China' series under the new title of  'Wong Fei Hung '92'.