This Chinese New Year, this movie had the unfortunate situation of coming up together with Fifty Shades of Grey, a highly anticipated sex movie! After all, sex sells doesn't it? But does action sell too?? Apparently, not as much because the theatre where i saw this movie was only about half full. However, if you already had your fill of "Fifty Shades of Grey" and am looking for a movie to keep you entertained, could this movie be the one for you??
Look at the poster first and maybe it will help you decide!
Now look closely. we all know who the person in the middle is but look right above him!! OH its a bunch of English people!!! I would say that this might be the attractive point of this movie in that you get to see English people fight with Chinese people. But what kind of story do we actually have? Lets read on to find out more.. But something to help you manage your expectation, this movie has nothing to do with a dragon blade. There's no dragon, theres quite a lot of blades.
Storyline 3.5/5
This movie has a pretty interesting storyline. It starts off saying it is inspired by historical events. This term is very vague and for this case, basically could mean something like 10% related to historical events. Maybe just that the main character has exactly the same name. That probably what they mean when they say inspired by historical events so don't be looking for a history lesson here. Nonetheless, storyline wise however, this movie has a pretty flowing storyline and it flows quite well especially for an action show. The only big issue of this movie is the START and the END where they introduce and end the movie. If you see this movie, you will understand what I mean but in short, if you want to make a movie about a period, there is absolutely NO NEED to use the present day time as a filler or introduction to the movie with completely no links and relevance using an actor and actress that totally has nothing to do with the main content of the movie itself. It is so absurd that you should just treat it like a joke or a non existent part of the movie.
The movie does a good job of introducing the background of what is happening and does it with appropriate amount of action in the middle which is what Jackie does best. As the movie flows on, it injects more and more storyline elements explaining what and why is everything and this keeps the audience interested in the movie and thus allow the movie to not seem too draggy or boring.
Character 4/5
This movie involves quite a lot of characters and also the introduction of different tribes. All the characters/tribe are pretty unique in characteristics, language, dress sense and even fighting style and in some way it becomes very entertaining to see all the differences in culture all these people have.
With regards to the main characters, the movie does focus on the backgrounds of the two main characters and the bad guy through various flashbacks that are short, but sufficient. Most of the stuff that happens is rather believable which serves to keep the audience immersed in the movie.
Just like most fighting movies, there will be a lot of death in this movie and this movie does the deaths relatively well with all the dying people having a nice short death sequence before they drop dead and die. The bad guy in the movie is also done very well and as you see the movie go on you will start to root more and more for the good guys and start to detest the bad guy. One flaw is however towards the end the bad guy gets conflicted for some reason which is somewhat not in character and not that believable.
Cinematography 4/5
This movie's cinematography focus on two things, 1 to 1 fighting as well as large scale epic battles. In fact, it can be said that the main fight scenes are reminiscent of "The Hobbit 5 Armies". It is almost like a chinese version of LOTR. Unlike the LOTR series however, the movie stays constrained to 2 hours and due to the need for some storyline, there are some room for improvements. Nonetheless the battle scenes are fun while they last and due to the variety in character, you will not end up in a state where your mind just says "blah blah blah, another fight scene, blahblahblah yet another fight scene".
They could have utilized more perspective shots that are fun to have in an action film to increase the entertainment value.
Music 3.5/5
Music is commonly quite a obvious part in chinese movies and this movie does it too. There is one part of singing in this movie to evoke some emotional attachment to what the people are feeling but this is still not a musical.
I still can't really appreciate Jackie Chan singing though.
Spectacle 4/5
In the genre of both action and storyline, this movie does fine, just not too spectacular with a bit of hiccups here and there However, it stays entertaining, unique, fresh and fun all the way from the beginning to the end which is what every action movie should at least have to attract the general public. It also has a relatively unique storyline as compared to the traditional chinese fighting movies although there is not too much kungfu in this. At least its not a all chinese affair in the end
Overall
Storyline: 3.5 (Interesting take on "historical" events, told in a attention grabbing way at least for the duration of the movie EXCEPT start and end)
Character: 4 (Quite a nice variety with good differences amongst all. Celebrating the differences makes it more entertaining)
Cinematography: 4 (Good 1 to 1 fight scenes with quite a bit of epic battles on the list)
Music: 3.5 (Uses music to push the emotional part across)
Spectacle: 4 (Storyline and action are done well and overall movie is kept exciting and flowing)
Overall: 3.8 (A very safe score, indicating that if you really have nothing you want to do in particular and like to see some actions plus big army fighting, this is the show u can see. It's not a must see however with a lower then 4 score but you would most likely be able to enjoy the movie nonetheless for its action scenes. Remember though, don't be affected by the start and the end of the movie. Just treat it as not being there at all.)
Let me know if you have any comments!
