Reviews

This is just such a great movie on so many levels. The acting is superb, the cast is wonderful, the screenplay is impeccable. But what's really striking about the movie is that it never takes the easy path, to tell an easy-cheesy hero melodrama story that seems almost guaranteed in such an "epic" setting nowadays: ancient China, blood oath of brotherhood, Kongfu and swordplay, etc. (sounds familiar?)

Instead, the movie keeps hitting you with one moral dilemma after another at every turn of the plot. It not only shows you the process of General Pang losing his last shred of humanity and becoming a monster, but at the same time presents the audience with the difficult choices that drive him through it, which makes the audience can't help but somehow empathize with him and question whether he is really that wrong? That is what makes this movie so emotionally powerful and intellectually tasteful.

To me personally, this is a movie of demagogues, an epitome of the Chinese politics of the last century. General Pang always reminds me of Chairman Mao. Both are great military leaders, yet greater demagogues who use war and trickery to satisfy their personal cravings for powers, and masterfully manipulate people's longing for morality and prosperity and turn them into barbarians and monsters. Maybe it's just me, but as a fellow Chinese, I can't help but suspect that Director Chen might have the same thing in mind.

Asia the invincible? what the hell's that? the guy's surname is Dong Fang, which is a normal chinese surname, means "the east", he call himeself Bu Bai, coz he has not, did not, and thinks would not be defeated, so it means The Undefeated.

I know translation is a tough job, no matter how good you think you did, you still cannot transform all the meanings, undertones, indications in a culture sense. But not like this one! This is a very beautiful movie, all the lines, the scenes, the costumes, all very authenticly chinese, and stunning. And the poems recited in the movie, and the haunting song...hate to see all of these been ruined by the rediculous translantion.

You know, many things are just not meant to be translated, many words in chinese, they just can't be properly translated, such as "tian xia","qian kun", they are somewhat close to the meaning of "the world", but never is in the same sense of it.

So, for those who deminished the plot of the movie, I just wana tell you, it was based on one of the best selling Wuxia books in China, and the lines, they are very beautiful, in chinese. And for those who talked about the wire works, hello, this is a fantasy movie, and even with the wiring, have you ever seen body movements as beautiful as this in other movies, say the matrix? Wiring doesn't neccesarily mean it's not googd KongFu, This movie has some of the best fight scenes I have ever seen, wiring is only a basic requirement for action fantasies, but the thing they did with the fight scene, that's art, man. You have to be a KongFu master and an artist at the same time to be able to design, to creat such beautiful things.

In short, advice for people from America, Europe, Africa...no-china£¬If you wana have a better understanding of the movie, READ THE BOOK FIRST, and before that, LEARN SOME CHINESE! :)