The movie had elements of Highlander and Les Visiteurs and some other time travel type movies, like Demolition Man (though this movie precedes Demolition Man). It is about two warriors from the Ming Dynasty. One is a psychotic killer while the other is an honourable royal guard who has to arrest the killer in twenty days or be executed himself. He chases the killer to Buddha's time wheel, originally designed to force Evil to experience a hundred life times, but used now to escape into the future. They meet, fight, and fall of a cliff and are frozen in ice only to be revived in the 20th Century.
This movie goes through all of the stages of culture shock in regards to time travel. Cars being monsters, television, and the old toilet and light switch jokes, which were performed heaps better in Les Visiteurs, but then Les Visiteurs was purely a comedy movie while this movie is more of a typical Hong-Kong action comedy. Then comes the shock of the changes, the Ming Dynasty has collapsed and everything has changed. Women has risen in status to a point where, as Ching is convinced, men are subservient. Then there is the bad guy who fits in with society reasonably well, except that he goes for pearls instead of Rolex watches.
I enjoyed it, as generally I like Hong Kong movies. There is little in the way of in-depth themes, or none that I can draw out of it (unlike John Woo films). There is the struggle of Ching to come to terms with the collapse of his empire, but this is something that we don't face, or not on his level. Yes, we find that at times our life simply collapses to a point where everything has changed, but I don't think The Iceman Cometh is design to provoke such thoughts. I think this movie is purely designed to entertain with martial arts extravaganzas. Woo seems to deal more with interweaving thought into his films, especially with the Killer, but we never really see Woo films on SBS. This is a good movie and would watch it again.
This movie goes through all of the stages of culture shock in regards to time travel. Cars being monsters, television, and the old toilet and light switch jokes, which were performed heaps better in Les Visiteurs, but then Les Visiteurs was purely a comedy movie while this movie is more of a typical Hong-Kong action comedy. Then comes the shock of the changes, the Ming Dynasty has collapsed and everything has changed. Women has risen in status to a point where, as Ching is convinced, men are subservient. Then there is the bad guy who fits in with society reasonably well, except that he goes for pearls instead of Rolex watches.
I enjoyed it, as generally I like Hong Kong movies. There is little in the way of in-depth themes, or none that I can draw out of it (unlike John Woo films). There is the struggle of Ching to come to terms with the collapse of his empire, but this is something that we don't face, or not on his level. Yes, we find that at times our life simply collapses to a point where everything has changed, but I don't think The Iceman Cometh is design to provoke such thoughts. I think this movie is purely designed to entertain with martial arts extravaganzas. Woo seems to deal more with interweaving thought into his films, especially with the Killer, but we never really see Woo films on SBS. This is a good movie and would watch it again.