I was almost giving this a 1 star but that would have been cruel. This movie is a failure, a failure that burnt a lot of money for not much. I have watched this four times in order to see it all. Every time I have fallen asleep or have become distracted by sorting socks.
OK, the ambition was great. Giving the official darling of Mainland China - Andy Lau - a heroic part in a historical epos. But for several reasons this movie turned out badly.
1) The timing was awful. I bet they had great difficulties with Chinese authorities and getting locations, not just for being a joint venture between different countries' film industries, but also since at the same time as this flick was shot, a great and ambitious duology dealing with an earlier period of the Three Kingdoms was made - John Woo's Chibi and Chibi 2(Red Cliff 1 and 2). The Chibis, two movies totally sanctioned by the government and filling two consecutive New Year slots in the movie calendar of China, was the pet of the time and that project was not saving on any resources during filming and post-production.
2) No Guan Yu, no Zhuge Liang. Zhao Zilong is a boring character to hang a movie on. This movie contains just old men either being emperors or being has-beens trying to relive a glorious past. (This movie is taking place in the later part of the Three Kingdoms.) The magnetic characters from the beginning of the era has been killed off, died of natural causes, becoming emperors (even being succeeded by their sons in some cases), and hey it is no fun watching old guys getting together a last time...it is like watching Space Cowboys. And we who have read Three Kingdoms know that this will end badly, Cao Pi will become emperor over a united China, not Liu Shan.
3) Casting. Andy Lau may be a star but that is not equivalent to being a good actor. He is a one-note man - being good as a hard-boiled HK cop or mobster. Sammo Hung is too closely connected to the Kung Fu-movie tradition to being believable in a costume movie, and all the others are not known to more than a few. Comparing to the earlier mentioned Chibis the casting looks more like being one of a B movie than one of a 25M dollar movie.
OK, the ambition was great. Giving the official darling of Mainland China - Andy Lau - a heroic part in a historical epos. But for several reasons this movie turned out badly.
1) The timing was awful. I bet they had great difficulties with Chinese authorities and getting locations, not just for being a joint venture between different countries' film industries, but also since at the same time as this flick was shot, a great and ambitious duology dealing with an earlier period of the Three Kingdoms was made - John Woo's Chibi and Chibi 2(Red Cliff 1 and 2). The Chibis, two movies totally sanctioned by the government and filling two consecutive New Year slots in the movie calendar of China, was the pet of the time and that project was not saving on any resources during filming and post-production.
2) No Guan Yu, no Zhuge Liang. Zhao Zilong is a boring character to hang a movie on. This movie contains just old men either being emperors or being has-beens trying to relive a glorious past. (This movie is taking place in the later part of the Three Kingdoms.) The magnetic characters from the beginning of the era has been killed off, died of natural causes, becoming emperors (even being succeeded by their sons in some cases), and hey it is no fun watching old guys getting together a last time...it is like watching Space Cowboys. And we who have read Three Kingdoms know that this will end badly, Cao Pi will become emperor over a united China, not Liu Shan.
3) Casting. Andy Lau may be a star but that is not equivalent to being a good actor. He is a one-note man - being good as a hard-boiled HK cop or mobster. Sammo Hung is too closely connected to the Kung Fu-movie tradition to being believable in a costume movie, and all the others are not known to more than a few. Comparing to the earlier mentioned Chibis the casting looks more like being one of a B movie than one of a 25M dollar movie.