I liked it! There is just something about martial arts that appeals to me. The undercurrent between the people is something to watch. I would recommend it to all to watch.
The costumes are great, the cinematography is mostly decent. But... the acting by Kelly Chen and Leon Lai is horrible, the sound mixing is abysmal, some of the sets are ridiculous and the script is absolutely terrible. My girlfriend kept muttering "Help, I'm dying of boredom" and I think this summed it up well.
LOL, this must be Donnie's experimental stage of his life. Ever since he moved back to the HK film industry, he had been making movies with crappy stories and good action. Only SPL has really good action. This film isnt SPL. There were no fights that was amazing. They were either mediocre or barable. The most noticably mediocre are the big battle scenes. This film's choreographer sure can't choreograph battles scenes. And don't tell me that its not possible because Warlords' battle scenes were brilliant. Next bad thing about the film is the story, it was unappealling and a drag. I only continued because I thought the film would have better fight sequences later on, which did not happen. Also, why the heck is Leon in this freaking film and wearing armor in the poster? That is very misleading. I expected that he was going to fight in a battle. Then there is the fact that Leon cant fight. Sure he has a few action films in his belt that his fighting is still crap. He is only good in a shooters but a melee film! Everytime he fought he needed someone good to support his crappy fighting. In the Donnie/Leon fight, Donnie did all the fancy moves. And in the Leon-Kelly vs. fight, Leon just ran around while Kelly shot. Another thing, Kelly was too relaxed and her acting was bad. This was especially evident when he was living with Leon. She was so relaxed that the emotions she was supposed to have were meloded out. The only decents thing in the film are the message and Donnie's ridiculously big sword.
A story of love, betrayal, and how personal ambition can destroy an entire empire. Although it is a movie about ancient war with some stunning fighting, it is really a story of how true inner peace comes and stays only when their is peace in the land as well.
I love these kinds of movies but this one specifically was a disappointment. It's not that its a horrible movie, not at all, but compared to all the movies of this type that come out of Asia, this is more of the same and too run of the mill to be memorable. Sure, some of the fighting scenes are cool, but they are far too few. Watch something like Hero or The Warlords. If you are a fan of these types of movies, then give it a watch. You might like it.
Great movie. It is an intense, well choreographed fantasy about feuding nations, betrayal, and the love story caught in the middle that almost all war movies have. But, the love story seemed a bit weak and disconnected from the rest of the plot.
Damn! They totally ruined it with that cast. I didn't like a single one of them. The acting was horrible mostly and the plot was quite bad as well.
I'm a big fan of films like these and to say the least, this is a huge disappointment. The only redeeming factor is perhaps the quality of costume design as well as the overall visual style. It's the classic case of style over substance. It's a shame this turned out so bad.
This is bad enough that a 2/5 sounds really generous.
Grammatically clumsy and cinematically lousy! This is just melodramatic Cantopop MTV bollocks. Leon Lai, Kelly Chen and the perpetually shirtless Donnie Yen haven't learned anythin about actin despite gettin so many deals! Avoid.
MCT:August 16, 2008
MCT:July 1, 2008
MCT:June 25, 2008
MCT:June 7, 2008
MCT:June 6, 2008
MCT:May 20, 2008
MCT:May 11, 2008
