Btexxamar I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

freydis-e Spoilers are all in the last-but-one paragraph.By Siu-Tung Ching, the director of the wonderful Chinese Ghost Story series, this one falls a long way short of CGS2 (an all-time great) but is well-made and a highly entertaining watch. It fails to be more through being too short to properly deal with the themes it raises, and by following too closely in the footsteps of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, whereas it actually had more to say.Everything is good, especially the direction which never allows the pace to flag despite the disparate story elements. Donnie Chen is wisely restricted to what he does best – fighting. Kelly Chen is fine in her role, convincingly stern and authoritative when needed, softer when the chance arises. And the support cast, led by the excellently understated Leon Lai, do fine. Cinematography is great, the story largely makes sense (despite oddities like the balloon flight, blown by the wind but ending up where it started) and the script, in translation, was snappy and effective.Some people didn't like this because it's a mix of action and romance, with some more thoughtful scenes thrown in. It seems some are only satisfied by non-stop fighting, others by non-stop goo. This has no goo as such, just a few gentler scenes that allowed the affection of the two characters to be well-shown without it, scenes which didn't interrupt the main theme of a woman in a man's world, dealing with a challenging and improbable destiny.Spoilers follow. I liked that everything was sensible and realistic, no magic, running up bamboo stems or flying from roof to roof in this one. An example. On inheriting from her father (a king, not an emperor!) Feier is expected not only to rule, indeed not only to lead troops into battle (as Tamara of Georgia and many other historical female rulers have done). For some reason she must also become a great warrior. In so many martial arts films, a few days' training turns some zero into an invincible fighter. In this one she trains hard and becomes competent, but nothing more. I didn't like so much that themes were not followed through on. Examples. The romantic relationship is conveniently removed in what looks like a rather less sentimental homage to CTHD. And the results of Feier's act of mercy in battle are never shown. She is prepared to use violence when needed, both leading her troops and with her own hand against her personal enemy, but warrior-turned-doctor Lan Quan has taught her to seek other ways of resolving problems and the results of that lesson are never shown. At the end of the film she is thoroughly accepted by her own people, but the relationships with the other warring kingdoms are forgotten about.If you enjoyed either CTHD or CGS2, do not miss this one. You should enjoy it anyway – as long as you don't only like non-stop fighting or non-stop goo.

loogenhausen An epic tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, the movie is ultimately bogged down by simplistic dialogue and an unfortunate side of cheese.Kelly Chen is the princess of a kingdom under fire by a rival warring state. Her dad, the Emperor, is a battle-hardened field general who is mortally wounded after insisting on leading his troops in one last attack on their enemies. D'oh. Chen comes into power on the throne after the dead Emp's fave general (Donnie Yen) withdraws his right to rule and backs the chick. You don't have to be a genius to see what comes next. The other generals do not like this and refuse to support her. War within and without is brewing and the good guys are outnumbered.So Chen toughs it out and knuckles up, right? Nope.After a very short commitment to train as a warrior and lead her troops confidently (the people love her, despite the lack of confidence shown by the warmongers) she gets her ass kicked by a marauding party from the enemy state and ends up in an expatriate doctor's (Leon Lai) treehouse of healing. Love blossoms, right on cue. The doctor turns out to be the last of a cadre of badass swordsmen who disbanded long ago after being betrayed or the like. Donnie Yen is dismayed by all this, naturally. The rebelling generals strike and all kinds of tragic shenanigans ensue.If this all sounds very Zhang Yimou to you, then you're in the same boat as me. Apparently director Siu-tung Chin is a big fan of House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. That's pretty good taste. However, the cheesy love music and simplistic script doesn't help matters one bit. It's a shame because the fights and battle scenes are quite the sight to behold. It's exciting stuff only made better by the presence of the superb Donnie Yen.This came very close to being a great films if it weren't for the pat philosophy on war and peace - separating everything into black and white. The love triangle is interesting in parts but Kelly Chen comes off as either cooing or coarse, with no in-between mode. The main thing that saves it from being another average-o-rama is Donnie Yen, the patron saint of physical destruction. Yen and his giant sword are a sight to behold in the finale and he continues to cement his place as an immortal tough guy. Too bad it was kinda sorta wasted in this kinda sorta disappointing movie. Don't let that stop you from watching it, though. It's still worth a look and very entertaining in parts.Maybe you'll get a kick out of the hokey slow motion shots of Kelly Chen and Leon Lai falling in love set to all kinds of sappy music.Or not.lMC

webmaster-3017 Tagline: A dismal effort from the action director of Hero… Review by Neo: It is probably normal that DVD or movie posters nowadays rhyme more with the word misleading than a true reflection. Looking at the poster of Ching Siu Tung's latest war epic, An Empress and the Warriors, there are three warriors in armors, namely the as usual Donnie Yen, the ever stoic Leon Lai and the elegantly beautiful Kelly Chen. One must start wondering if it is the believability factor of having Kelly Chen as a warrior empress is a prominent fraud. While it is probably a fraud in terms of making the paying audience to sit through a woman with obvious modern looks in ancient warrior, the real fraud is seeing Leon Lai in armor. Since when did Leon put on that armor, when he wore peasant clothing throughout the flick. Moving on from the marketing fraud theory, the question moves to whether or not this flick serves up enough meat and wine to satisfy the current reviewer. The answer is a quick no and if you must ask for his bluntly honest opinion, Neo wants to fire the casting agency and probably have the screenwriter set on fire as well.The winner of the first issue or problem is the casting of Kelly Chen. Everyone knows Kelly is one with limited acting range and while she is elegantly pretty enough to engage Neo's attention, her acting at important moments are largely laughable. The manner she screams for glory, anger or help are almost to the point of hitting and stretching the laughing buttons of every normal human being. In fact at this moment, Neo just cannot take his mind away from the moment she screams in pain near the end of the film. Frankly, Chen fails to emote with the audience and her acting is plain crap. While Kelly may be able to play a dead-serious high ranking cop in Johnnie To's Breaking News, she is certainly no warrior with a warm heart.Another reason to sack the casting director is why the hell you would bother to cast three actors with almost equal stoic acting is really beyond Neo. When the best thing to come out of the flicks lies in Leon Lai's somewhat interesting performance, the audience probably knows what they have truly got themselves into. While one wouldn't say the flick is a complete waste of time as it is probably still better than dozens of other HK cinema apprentices. It goes without saying that people expect more with war epics or even movies with ancient costumes to boost.Without being a total critic, Neo is craving for some pros to talk about, but in a switch of conscious, he decided to proceed with the cons. The battle sequences are beyond un-witness-able and one would have through that after the years of action directing and directing epics battle, Ching would know much better. When a movie does not relate or attempt to connect with the audience, it will usually not win the side of the audience. Adding to this mess is the acting skills of Donnie Yen. While Yen have been appearing in almost every HK action-er in the past decade and probably is just as hard working as the more famous Andy Lau, Yen must admit that he will probably never win a Best Actor Award. Whenever a slightly more challenging scene comes along, Yen's face will overacts and the result is the audience laughing on the outside, rather than emoting in silence on the inside. However, this is really no fault to Yen, as he really tries, but rather the burden of lad falls on director Ching for usually such close up shots on Yen and Chen's limited acting face.As mentioned before, Leon Lai is the best out of the pack as of the three; he is most human and perhaps the most pure. Lai is stoic, but he neither overacts nor underplays his character as an all-knowing doctor/ inventor. It is the scenes with Lai and Chen that allows the film to smoothly run to the heist finish line. The view of the tree tops, the lake sequences and the hot air balloon are all good moments of cinematography in picturing the beauty of China. A good performance from Lai and certainly one that is comfortable with his range and self.All in all, An Empress and the Warriors is a far cry of some of Ching's best works (Chinese Ghost Story days and one of Neo's all time favorite – Swordsman 2). If one say that Ching have lost form, that is almost untrue to ponder upon as it won't take long for people to point you towards the direction of the great action sequences of Warlords and even the fun fighting in the Japanese flick ,Dororo. So what exactly went wrong, the question is simple, just blame it all on Steven Seagal (he last directed Belly of the Beast in 2003), but seriously Ching is probably a better action director than a director. So in the mean time, forget the days of Swordsman 2 and think about sometime that is just borderline average HK Cinema and what you get is a laughable Kelly Chen trying to be a warrior, Donnie Yen trying to emote and director Ching forgetting he is not shooting a Seagal production. Then again, at least Leon Lai manages to impress… (Neo 2008)I rate it 5.5/10www.thehkneo.com

hubertng There are so many bad things to talk about this show i don't even know where to start.The script is just so bad and there are so many western movie rip off. Come on, jousting in china?? War chariots with blades?I count - Gladiator, A knight's tale ( the training on the river + jousting), Predator ( They must have borrowed the same traps from Arnold).1. Gladiator rip off. - Snuffing of the emperor (when I saw this, I thought it was a coincidence) and the reasons.. ambitious, no talent, good for nothing .. Joaquin Phoenix, anyone? - war chariots with cutting blades on the wheels.. did Egypt share this technology with china? I never knew that exist in Chinese history. - use of shield to cause chariots to overturn the chariots - when did Chinese soldiers start to fight like Legions?? - The most annoying part - Russell Crowe used a sword to direct his gladiators to "single column" to one side and point his sword to another side commanding "single column" in the Colosseum - Donnie Yen did exactly the same thing except in some commands in Chinese I didn't catch because I was cringing with all my senses shut.2. The Characters are bad - Princess - Poor country loyalty vs Love. It seems she just want to ditch her country as soon as she has the chanceNo sense of duty. She could shut her love (scene where she feed the horse and telling Donnie she knew he was helping her) to flirting with Leon lai without care in the jungle. Its like watching 2 characters in play.. no duty vs love emotion conflict at all. She just switch it on and off. Leon Lai character - MacGyver in China? Hot air balloon? Not to mention another western movie rip off of Predator. Its so laughable about the traps and how the hooded men just walk into his traps when the jungle are so huge. They can jump straight into his log at just the right angle to be taken out...ALSO LEON LAI never even don that Armour in the show so why did the studio promote him wearing beside Donnie and Kelly in all the posters?3. The chasing scene - this is probably the most laughable part - The assassin could have blow the dart easily at the princess from the cliff judging from the way the blow the dart when chasing the princess on the horse - but they must execute a difficulty level of 10 dive to forewarn her and do a synchronize swim performance before chasing. They must be inspired by the fact that Olympics is coming to China. - OK, the princess managed to jump on the horse and ran from the bunch of assassins who bounce up and down without gravity (unlike the smooth wire lightness floating you see in crouching tiger). They stop to blow the dart.. while Kelly continues to ride.. They miss and continue the chase but hold on.. While they stop and Kelly ride, the didn't lose an inch, they are still on her tail seemingly.. You need a lot of suspending your disbelief to finish the show. If Yen kingdom had such magical and great assassins/warriors why cant they just enlist their help to defeat the enemy in the first place?The war scenes are bad.. I serious thought I was watching HBO's Rome. In the last scene where Donnie Yuen was fighting the soldiers.. Why did the horsemen in with flags riding round and round the hundreds of soldiers with only Donnie Yuen in the center? Some clockwise and some counterclockwise? Just to kick up sand?The characterization of the bad guy is also wrong. He was not warmongering.. he was just going for the throne. YOu would have thought the Princess declared peace with the enemy that you expect the bad guy to attack the enemy again just to contrast war and peace.. but all he did was to hunt the princess down. This is the second show after Speed 2 that I cannot bare myself to finish the DVD. The title is not appropriate at all. It should be a princess tale or something but not jiang shan mei ren. The princess character was not tout to be a beauty, just a princess. No mention of her beauty in the show except she is too feminine. I do not recommend this to anyone at all. Please save your money for Red Cliff later this year.Jiang Shan Mei Ren is a folkore about a pretty girl that a Ming emperor fell in love. Not about a princess.