I was really surprised when instead of a serious story I found out that this is just an ordinary love comedy about a legendary Chinese magician fighting a warlord to rescue his fiancée during the period of the Republic of China after the fall of the Qing dynasty. If you take it as… More
I was really surprised when instead of a serious story I found out that this is just an ordinary love comedy about a legendary Chinese magician fighting a warlord to rescue his fiancée during the period of the Republic of China after the fall of the Qing dynasty. If you take it as such you could enjoy it, if you expected something else you could be really disappointed!
Directed by Hong Kong director Er Dongsheng (尔冬升), the film has a cast led by Liang Chaowei (梁朝伟), Liu Qingyun (刘青云) and Zhou Xun (周迅). While the first two were well suited for comedy roles, Zhou Xun's poker face did nothing to contribute to the excitement of this film adapted from a novel by Zhang Haifan (张海帆). The novel devotes a large part to traditional Chinese magic tricks and the film is showing these tricks with the help of special effects. The leading actors have received training from real magician and all become magic enthusiasts.
Professionally acted and directed but without any extra effort to make it special. Just another flick where a guy goes for the childhood sweetheart for boring cold Saturday afternoon.
