Movies: 1911

Movies: 1911

INTRODUCTION

This movie is tauted as the 100th movie of Jackie Chan and what a fitting way to commemorate the moment with him directing and staring in his own movie for the whole world to see. To the not historically inclined, this movie actually follows a portion of China's historical timeline, and i believe it is the period whereby China moves from fedualism i.e the kinda ruling where there is the empress or emperor into a Republic ruling system where they have a president that is elected by the people to be ruling the people.

So this is how you will see Jackie throughout his movie, but during the course of the movie, we not only follow his character who is some guy named Keqiang or something like that, (people in those time kinda have two different Chinese names or something) we will also be following the path of this guy called Sun Wen which i believe is a main character in quite a few other movies already as one of the proponents of the idea of forming a republic.

As you can see from the above introduction, I am not really a strong follower of Chinese history, and on the account that most other people I know might not be strong followers of Chinese history in the first place also, therefore this review will be able to answer your question of whether you should see this or not.

Plot


From the plot itself, this is where I was initially pretty confused. The trailers that you see in the pre-movie portion seems to depict this show as a action flick, along with Jackie's involvement, and it has many scenes of people rushing in ala saving Private Ryan. It even has a few moments where you see the empress decked in her traditional chinese dresscode with all the chinese and their hair tails and magistrate looking attires.

Saving Private Jackie?!?

Which timeline are we in again?

So it is actually pretty interesting and yet confusing to see stuff like that with all the guns and modern fighting scenes along with people who are decked in traditional attire that I have expected during the entire show to be able to do some kungfu and fly around the place. But I guess in some way, this adds to the uniqueness of the show as it is indeed at the threshold of modern advancement. In fact there are even quite a few entertaining speeches of English during the visit of Sun Wen to the western world to get support from them.

However, this is where the problem lies. It tries to show itself in the trailers as a action flick, but the last half hour or so, is actually very political based in nature with hardly anymore fighting but instead some issues on politics.

To the extent that the show towards the back seems to resemble some documentary in some way and this might put some people off if they expect the wrong things.

Storyline wise though, the plot is solid as long as we are able to empathize and understand the situation and the way the lifestyle is. I personally enjoyed the part whereby everything done by the Empress dowager and her son is met with such strange respect from her subordinates.


Character


The show focuses on a few main characters and does a pretty ok job. However, the actions and reactions of some of the main characters are sometimes not consistant. It also tries to flesh out the background of some minor characters and kills them pretty quickly in the beginning of the show that might help some people empathize better with their characters but overall their moments are too short and hence might feel slightly redundant.

There are also some actions taken by the starring characters that seem to have no real basis, or at least hard to infer some basis from the way they have done things so far. I am also confused about the role of this western guy who meets Sun Wen and goes participate in the war all of a sudden and just disappears for a good part of the show before reappearing without doing anything in particular.


Cinematography


The Cinematography in this show is actually particularly good, having good angles to emphasize certain points and there very smart usage of text over to help explain the situation to the people. Perhaps a slight grouse would be that the time passes a bit too quickly and some sections of time are actually really too short periods that pass too quickly.

Overall however, the way the show does things to show the historical aspects as well the action components are pretty good and they add better understanding of the show as well as some level of immersion.

They are also pretty daring to bring the audience not only to the traditional chinese areas but also into some of the western world to see what Sun Wen was doing overseas and as a result, although slightly confusing to determine which timeline you are really in, it still adds some novelty along with the many Chinese accented English speeches made in the show.


Music


The music is actually pretty good in the show and it adds particular value. I realised that it is actually pretty hard to notice the presence of the music in the show because we tend to be more immersed in the visual aspects and not notice the more subconscious effect the music has. However, since during the movie it did come to my mind that the music was fitting, I guess this is good enough measure that the music was actually pretty well done.


Spectacle


This show if rated based on the action genre, it will only pass off as average. Fortunately, I have to rate it based on the genre historical action and in this case, it does make a good attempt on both fronts recreating the historical situations in the relevant places, as well as doing a good job story telling as required for a historical flick. The action portions is also not particularly neglected and hence the show does pretty well for its unique genre. Only thing is that the action portion is COMPLETELY removed in the end portion of the show which in my opinion will be quite off putting for people who wanted the action.


Overall

Plot                        : 3.5 (Good storyline, but attempts to join the two genre made it harder for action lovers to appreciate)
Character               : 4 (There is development of the main characters but lack of consistency and many introduced subcharacters made it a bit confusing)
Cinematography     : 4.5 (Done pretty well for both action and historical genre)
Music                     : 4 (Managed to notice and appreciate the music, hence it is better then usual)
Spectacle               : 3.5 (Problem is during that action portion people will like the action part, but most people who love action don't really appreciate politics which is the historical part of the show and takes up a sizable time portion at the back of the show before it ends)

Overall                    : 3.9
Two genres that are done well on its own, but when put together seem to have a conflict in the usual mindset of people. A person who likes Political shows and Action shows however, will be able to like this show, but besides that for a action thrill seeker, it is really a put off at the end of the show even though admittedly the action portions are still pretty good at the initial part of the show.

Hence it is probably best if you already know what you are going to watch before going in having expectation of a nice action flick.

One more thing to note, being a flick by Jackie Chan, in this entire show, there is the standard Jackie Chan moment where we get to see that even after 100 movies, Jackie still has some kungfu powers.

This show is ending its run pretty soon so if you still have interest in it, don't pass off the chance :)