mmushrm I was horribly disappointed by this movie. The opening sequence was good. Even the initial plot line of a power struggle and intrigue with the royal family. Then a love story gets introduced and the entire movie changes into an absolute mess. Mind you, I am not against love stories intersected into the plot line but this turned to movie into a melodramatic mess. (taking a ride in just invented (by her lover in the bush) hot air balloon, giving up the throne, the slaughter of everyone close to her etc etc). Basically when this movie ended I basically threw away the DVD. The only redeeming quality of this movie is some of the visuals but its not worth the pain of watching the movie, especially the aggrav of the ending.

dbborroughs When the Emperor is wounded in battle he turns the running of the army to one of his generals(Donnie Yen), a man of absolute loyalty but uncertain birth. This doesn't sit well with the Emperor's nephew who kills the old man when he gets a chance. What the nephew doesn't know is that, Donnie Yen was also made heir to the throne. The generals and the nephew don't like this and Yen wanting to part of the politics makes the daughter of the emperor Empress. She takes the throne, vowing to go through the military training and lead her army. Of course the nephew doesn't like that idea either and he begins to plot to take control of the kingdom by force.A romantic action film with a triangle at its center (the empress is rescued by an inventor in the woods who doesn't know who she is, and doesn't let on he's a great fighter. That pair falls in love while Donnie yen looks on longingly), this has some great fight sequences but suffers from a romance thats essentially a Cliff Notes version of emotion. The spectacle is here but the emotion really isn't and what you get out of this film will depend upon what you bring to it. To me for the romance to work you have to be willing to fill in all of the blanks the film leaves unsaid. I couldn't do it and just sort of waived my hand at the thought of much of the plot. Actually this is not a bad film, but its not a particularly remarkable one. Its very much like several recent martial arts films, Three Kingdoms springs first to mind, where the action sequences overwhelm the slender plot. Its one of what seems to be a trend where directors seem to think they can be brief with the plot so long as they are showy with the spectacle (The Promise anyone?). Forgive me I need a plot to drive the action.Worth a look if you run across it say as a rental, but I would be hard pressed to really justify a 12 buck viewing in theaters. (This is going to be the first film screened as part of this years New York Asian Film festival which strikes me as rather an odd choice since its strangely unremarkable film to be part of a film festival. The film is neither the best nor the worst of its type, its just something thats unremarkable part of the middle of the pack)

nizsu I watched this film becuz the trailer is quite good "love in war" D". The acting is OK OK. The storyline is too simple. Everything happened easily like in cartoon and fairy tale. If war is easily stopped by such naive words of a princess or anyone else, there were not World War 1 and 2. And up until today, there's still wars happening in parts of the world. A princess fell in love with a guy in days when hearing he said some nice words like " War only bring pain". the meaning of this film is announced by him too. Its like he was shouting at us "The meaning of this film is "war only bring pain". Everyone got it?" . I don't get it.The battle scenes has no intensity at all. I feel like there are just a few group of ppl fighting each other. Why there are several cut-off scenes. It seems that the director didn't know how to direct the scenes properly, so he decided to jump from scenes to scenes. Give it 4/10 for the gud trailer and the ending.

DICK STEEL I guess a new Hong Kong trend is emerging. I recall that as a kid, there was the Mr Vampire movie, which spawned a slew of Chinese vampire movies in its wake. Then there was John Woo's A Better Tomorrow, which gave birth to a whole lot of brotherhood-amongst-thieves themed films. And then there was Once Upon A Time in China, which brought about a renaissance in martial arts movies based on historical or beloved fictional folk heroes. These days, we're living in the Warring period era, where we have a fixation with armour, and more armour, thanks to movies like The Myth, Battle of Wits, The Warlords, Curse of the Golden Flower, and more to come with Battle of Red cliff, and Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon.An Empress and The Warriors continue this trend, based on the state of Yan which is under constant warring with the state of Zhao. The titular characters here are Yen Feier (Kelly Chen) who becomes empress after the assassination of her Emperor father, and because of the unhappiness of rival generals over the appointment of Donnie Yen's General Muyong Xuehu as heir to the throne. So he refuses to partake in any more political schemes, and throws his support behind his childhood friend and unrequited love of his life, whose relationship with her is made even more complex as he has to train her to become a warrior, ala Mulan, in montage style.And no thanks to her scheming cousin Wu Ba (Guo Xiao-Dong) who tries his very best in sowing discord amongst the court / generals, in order to see his ambition of sitting on the throne through. Another assassination attempt on the life of Feier, and we're introduced to the other Warrior from the title, Duan Lan-Quan (Leon Lai), who in actual fact looks like and lives like an Eastern Robin Hood, on a set that looks a complete rip off from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The inevitable romantic tangle between single beautiful princess and good looking doctor begins, and begs the question whether she still remembers her pledge to put country first. In truth, there are many elements here from the Robin Hood folklore, besides the set, with the bows and arrows, ambush cum assault which was thankfully well done in keeping up the tempo, and a fight sequence atop floating logs that drew inspiration from Robin vs Little John. The romantic angle though was quite unnatural and unfortunately felt very forced, and bogged down the entire movie, with Feier in a dilemma choosing between two potential beaus, and each of them having reason to hold a candle for her. I was half expecting Bryan Adams to come belting out his hit single, but we're treated to a duet by the two leads (who are singers by the way), in what I believe could have a chance to top the mando-pop charts.Action wise, you've got to leave it to Donnie Yen to deliver the goods. Alas, there's nothing too different here with the war battle sequences, as it again borrows heavily from its peers, in particular, Stanley Tong's The Myth (in fact, too much and too direct a reference), and cut down one too many horses (none were harmed of course). Yen did seem rather stiff under all that heavy metal, and there isn't any single fight sequence that stood out during battles, except perhaps for that token same-screen sharing scene with Leon Lai, or that flight into the forest (yet another nod in the direction of A Touch of Zen).All that's left of this movie that's worth mentioning, are the beautiful, intricately designed suits of armour, so much so that even Leon Lai has a full suit just to aesthetically please the movie's poster, and the cinematography, credit due to Zhao Xiao-Ding, who also lensed House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower.An Empress and the Warriors turned out to be a movie that's neither here nor there - a weak romance and a weak war action movie, and its storyline, which at times confounds because of its implausibilities in character motivation and loopholes, all add up to making this an average movie at best.