After seeing Warlords and reading the reviews I was expecting something new and interesting to the Wu xia/martial arts genre.
What I should have expected was the normal clichéd, over the top characters. (Minor spoilers) Killer assumes new identity and tries to live peacefully with his new family, detective cuts off his own empathy using acupuncture. Nothing new, likely or realistic here but the parts are played seriously by the actors and who is ever disappointed by a martial arts movie lacking in an original story line.
Then we have the fight scenes, over the top trash, Donnie Yen makes another guy punch himself in the face so hard his teeth fall out, this probably happened before he flew into the air and attached his feet to the ceiling. Crouching Tiger had wire work but it also managed to have some amazing, realistic fight choreography alongside it. In Wu xia we have the standard rubbish you would see in Hero and House of daggers where wire and other special effects are used to make the unreal look real and failing in the attempt. (Another Spoiler) man has his heart stopped with acupuncture, cuts off his own arm then goes home to have a long boring drawn out fight scene with a fat bald man. Someone gets struck by lightning.
This is exactly what I have come to expect from Chinese cinema of late not to mention the hit and miss (mostly miss) master Donnie Yen. Because I had paid for the movie I kept watching and waiting for it to get better or show the reasoning behind its many shining reviews but of course it proved to be nothing more than something which could have been dreamed up by the 4 yr old character in the movie playing Yen's son. The only positives are the settings and look of the movie, don't waste your money!
What I should have expected was the normal clichéd, over the top characters. (Minor spoilers) Killer assumes new identity and tries to live peacefully with his new family, detective cuts off his own empathy using acupuncture. Nothing new, likely or realistic here but the parts are played seriously by the actors and who is ever disappointed by a martial arts movie lacking in an original story line.
Then we have the fight scenes, over the top trash, Donnie Yen makes another guy punch himself in the face so hard his teeth fall out, this probably happened before he flew into the air and attached his feet to the ceiling. Crouching Tiger had wire work but it also managed to have some amazing, realistic fight choreography alongside it. In Wu xia we have the standard rubbish you would see in Hero and House of daggers where wire and other special effects are used to make the unreal look real and failing in the attempt. (Another Spoiler) man has his heart stopped with acupuncture, cuts off his own arm then goes home to have a long boring drawn out fight scene with a fat bald man. Someone gets struck by lightning.
This is exactly what I have come to expect from Chinese cinema of late not to mention the hit and miss (mostly miss) master Donnie Yen. Because I had paid for the movie I kept watching and waiting for it to get better or show the reasoning behind its many shining reviews but of course it proved to be nothing more than something which could have been dreamed up by the 4 yr old character in the movie playing Yen's son. The only positives are the settings and look of the movie, don't waste your money!