paizek I agree with other reviewers that this film has been overlooked as a martial arts action flick. The movie offers two bona-fide stars, Jiang Wen and Donnie Yen, one who can act and one who can fight. Production values are high with nicely detailed "historical" temples and towns and costly on-scene locations amidst China's "eternal" hills and forests. The directors, known for their earlier Infernal Affairs, do a good job in creating a seamless narrative that follows every Hollywood convention in terms of story and character development. At the same time, they include the occasional cinematic surprise, such as the extended scene which closes the doors on all the action, only allowing the viewer an acoustic glimpse of the butt-kicking taking place (note that the 15th century Ming-dynasty novel actually does something similar in the fourth chapter, when Guan Yu rides out after Cao Cao offers him a cup of warm wine and returns, after much noise drifting over from the battlefield, to toss the decapitated head of his enemy to the ground. When he finally accepts the cup of wine, it is still warm). Personally, what I found most interesting is the way the movie reinterprets standard "history." Tales of The Three Kingdoms are a dime a dozen and usually it is Cao Cao who is depicted as a ruthless villain. This movie instead shows him as a thoughtful statesman who has no choice but make sometimes unpopular decisions (such as killing thousands, ten thousands of people). Unlike a previous reviewer, I have no problems with this deviation of the standard narrative because it is "ahistorical." Most standard histories, at least up until the 11th century, were more sympathetic to Cao Cao than Liu Bei and it is only in the more popular versions of the story, most notably the Ming novel, that Liu Bei becomes the ideal ruler and Cao Cao the heartless usurper. What interested me though was the way this particular rewrite serves as an example of a whole host of recent Hong Kong-PRC co-productions which use historical analogy to suggest that an unpopular central ruler from the north may actually not be all that bad if you desire a unified, peaceful, and of course strong China. First there was Zhang Yimou with "Hero," who told us that the First Emperor of China may well have been a much misunderstood enlightened despot. Now we have Alan Mak and Felix Chong suggesting that the white-faced Cao Cao may actually have been a pretty good bloke. Of course, for China to be unified, sacrifices have to be made. That was, of course, the message of Zhang Yimou in "Hero," with its final scene of ritual mourning, and, yes, here a similar scene of thoughtful mourning is dutifully recreated. And so throughout the film Donnie Yen suffers nobly; he gives up the love of his life, gets pelted by outraged villagers, is willing to be poisoned by a dubious friend, but the sacrifice that got to me most was poor Donnie's voice; dubbing his idiosyncratic Cantonese into standard Mandarin is just plain villainy.

skizzokaty --This is the only thing I don't like about foreign films, is the cruelty to animals that some of them have, at At 44:49 they clearly bust the legs of a horse. This disappointed me as I was trying to get into it, finally found a martial arts movie with out people flying around. --I wish I could post something good, but the horse thing blinds me to any merits the movie may or may not have.The subtitles are done well, costumes look good, the gals are youngish.I just wish movies like these with killing animals in this fashion were censored or something, its not the first time i've seen modern foreign films with this kind of footage, my take is its a lot cheaper for movie makers in other countries to implement this kind of thing, instead of a lot of CGI.

Smiling_slinky I really cannot praise it enough. It is probably the best Chinese film I have seen in years, and easily one of the best period films I have seen. Of Donnie's recent films, I really cannot find a comparison, this is truly stellar. Wen Jiang is so amazingly charismatic as Cao Cao. I couldn't help but be engaged whenever he was on screen, he is probably my current favorite actor, including Hollywood. He may be the best actor in the World currently. Betty Sun is very enjoyable in her role, and added another level of depth to the story.From the opening, I knew I was in for something special. The soundtrack, the cinematography, the acting, just excellent.In short, if you enjoy Asian Cinema to any degree, this film will be nothing but a delight.

kosmasp Donnie Yen is really good at Martial Arts, but you already knew that. Some don't think he's a very good actor though. But the role he has on hand here, is really serving him good. He plays a loner and that suits him very well. The action scenes are phenomenal as expected and the story is good enough (while you could argue there is too much kitsch in it, I think it's the right amount).It's not a masterpiece, but I think it's a good movie overall, with great story points and turns that while you might expect them, they still come down crashing on you. What's also true, the movie does not loose much on a second viewing. I even liked it better the second time around, because I knew where it was heading and could see small touches in between the settings.