I decided earlier not to go for this movie after seeing Peter Chen's Warlords, a remake of 70s Blood Brothers that turned out to be disappointing. After reading some "good" reviews here and curious to know how is this movie related to One Armed Swordsman(as the publicity used during shooting and since Jimmy Wang Yu is having an important role too), I watched it on the big screen last night. I am disappointed. Here are my reasons: 1) The Chinese title Wu Xia is misleading. Whether it's the story, theme, concept or action, it's the LEAST wu xia-like action movie ever. 2) You can tell the production is very serious but there are just too many major flaws(esp in the script,I will detail some under no. 6, SPOILERS below). Although the story is very simple, they don't know how to end the movie well. The ending will make you feel very dissatisfied if not laughingly ridiculous. 3) Peter must have realised his mistake in Warlords and made great improvement here with clear cinematography and actions but that's about all. Every other aspects are quite wrong. The CSI is far too much, the action scenes are clear but nothing outstanding and far too few(over 60 mins of non-fighting scenes), the CG here is inappropriate, the voice over by Takeshi's role is also irrelevant, the 2nd Takeshi and his double roles are funny. The sudden scenes on insects, animals and karma are just not suitable and inconsistent with the entire movie or wu xia concept. To make it worse, the movie made in a light comical manner is also a big mistake. 4) I have not seen HISTORY OF VIOLENCE but this this movie is clearly copied from REIGN OF ASSASSINS(Donnie's hidden identity, temporary death the rest of his story) & DETECTIVE DEE(Takeshi's role) 5) Donnie just cannot act(YET) although many will agree that this is his best acted movie so far, thanks to Peter's direction obviously. I only find 2 scenes from him that he acted, his final scene with Kara Hui & a crying scene at night minutes later. Takeshi, as usual seldom disappoint and I find him flawless here. In fact, he has successfully created a character and no surprise if some follow-ups are made with his role. Tang Wei did not prove any better from her first movie. Jimmy Wang Yu gave a memorable performance, unlike any role he did during his superstar years. Although old and fat, he upstaged Donnie and took the final scenes like his own movie 6)*****SPOILERS***** a) The happy look from Kara Hui with a situation & expression copied directly from Briggite Lin's Dong Fang Bu Bai don't make sense at all; b) Not knowing how to end the final climatic fight, Wang Yu just got struck by lighting. Very original, acceptable as god's will or karma but absurd for a wu xia movie; c) Throughout the movie till his final scene, Takeshi's role is determined to arrest Donnie for his crime; so the story has Takeshi killed to give Donnie a happy ending.
If Peter think a new kind of Wu Xia movie can be created, he is wrong.
If Peter think a new kind of Wu Xia movie can be created, he is wrong.