ac First of all, please do not believe people who tell you this is based on a "true" story. While there is a historical Yang Ye and his son Yang Yanchao, the events of this movie is extremely fictionalized. In fact, the only thing that can be verified to be true is that both Yang Ye and Yang Yanchao existed. Second, this is the kind of "idol" movie that plagues Chinese cinema nowadays. Yes, the dudes are good looking movie stars and the style looks good. But, substance-wise, there's not much here. There's no distinguishable personality difference about these guys. The common thread is that hey these are handsome and awesome heroes who are all willing to sacrifice themselves (as well as their unfortunate followers) to save their dad. Anyhow, there's a lot of melodramatic shots of heroism and sacrifice, and the end is an ironic twist to the prediction made by the old mystic man who says "seven sons will go, six will return." The cinematography and choreography is very well done. Unfortunately, like which many big-budget Asian films, it's more about style than substance. The characters do inexplicably stupid things in the name of honor (and looking cool), and at the end, this little more than a typical brainless waste of 100 minutes.I gave this a 5 because the fight scenes are very nice, and at least not a mess of CGI. There have been far worse Asian movies out there in recent years, so while I would not recommend this movie, at least it's not an utter disaster.

kosmasp I do have a soft spot for Eastern in general (no pun intended) and this was able to fill that. Now the story is simple (though I won't go into it and let you explore it yourself or read about it in the summary tag here on IMDb), but it is the action scenes and the drama that involves the family and obviously the tradition that surrounds it all.If you are like me, there is no question you will like this (maybe even rate it higher than me), but this is not art-house (even though some themes might qualify as such by themselves), this is an action movie. So if that is what you are looking for you could do a lot worse than this. Nice fighting, good choreography and a story that is easy to follow.

dworldeater Saving General Yang is an excellent Chinese period war movie in the same vein as Red Cliff and Warlords. Of course, the three of these films differ greatly. SGY takes place in Northeast China, early Song dynasty where the righteous General Yang is trapped behind enemy lines and his seven sons rush to the battlefield to rescue him. Directed by Ronny Yu, who directed some of my favorite Chinese language movies such as Fearless and The Bride With White Hair. As usual for Ronny Yu, SGY is real sharp looking with exceptional camera-work. Yu did well with this period epic with top notch cinematography, great action, nice sets/costumes, good storytelling and solid performances from the cast. As this is a war movie, I felt the film needed more blood. Even so, that is a minor complaint as SGY is a very solid and well made movie.

Kinoviewer I have watched this movie just out of curiosity to find out if there was any "connection" with "Saving Private Ryan" and to some extent there was. The plot is quite obvious with a resemblance of old fairy tales about seven warriors. There are all movie elements you expect to see in recent Chinese movies like love, brotherhood, master and student relations, political intrigues, wisdom, betrayal, revenge, etc. Everything is the way it should be, the good guys remain good ones till they die and bad guys are either punished or learn their lesson. As a person who has been watching martial art movies for many years, I could appreciate the quality of fighting scenes choreography. I can hardly imagine how warriors of the past could fight for hours using their weapons when one gets tired after fencing for just an hour. Of course there are special effects, but most of the stunts are done with minimal "wire use" that has been heavily exploited by Jet Li in his last movies. I cannot say this is one of the best martial art movies, but I did not have a feeling of wasted time after watching it. The main thing that kept me watching this movie till the end was a prophesy written by a wise master. Intrigued? Then watch it yourself.