![]() Here the one on one action scenes between characters are wonderfully choreographed by Sammo Hung himself, but the quick cuts, close ups, tight shots and dizzying camera work marred it all. And I don't think it's me who's feeling quite jaded from the clanging of weapons against armour. However in doing this, we do get to see familiar characters sharing the stage, albeit some given very little screen time. Resurrection of the Dragon's focus is on one man - Zhao Zilong, and in doing so, fairly summarized his tale from beginning to end, with plenty of artistic and dramatic license taken of course, where purist will probably have a field day discussing all the inaccuracies and departure from the source material. While the runtime for John Woo's movies (in two parts?) is still not finalized, at least his focus is on one key, primary battle. You cannot fault the designs of the sets, the costumes (though of course some would complain it looks so Japanese), and I thought the weapons were eye-poppingly beautiful and intricately designed - you just have to take a look at Guan Yu's Green Dragon Crescent Blade! It's impossible to try and distill the entire classics into a 3-hour long movie, or even a trilogy would do its richness injustice, let alone a 2 hour one. Three Kingdoms rode on its star power to carry its relatively bland storyline forward, with Andy Lau as Zilong, Maggie Q as nemesis Cao Ying (who's male in the novel), Sammo Hung as newly created character/narrator Luo Pingan, and a whole host of supporting acts in Vanness Wu, Andy On, and even Ti Lung in a surprisingly nicely presented Guan Yu. But I suspect that Red Cliff will probably blow all competition out of the water going by the trailer, though the final product remains to be proved this Summer. As I mentioned in an earlier review of An Empress and The Warriors, we're getting plenty of such period war movies coming out in recent months, culminating perhaps with John Woo's highly anticipated Red Cliff, but amongst the recent releases, Three Kingdoms draws first blood. Outside of the Liu- Bei-Guan-Yu-Zhang-Fei brotherhood together with their unsurpassed military strategist Zhuge Liang at their side, Zhao Yun had qualities like valour which I thought was exemplary, and an episode, though taken on a whole new spin in presentation where he goes rescue the infant son of Liu Bei, to demonstrate that, gets its fair share of airtime in this movie. And of course, one of my favourite general characters, was Zhao Zilong. akin to watching a Shakespearean play for the very first time and marvelling at the richness in language used), and of course, the Koei computer game that so many peers of my generation would have played at one time or another. My only other contacts with this classic Chinese literature is with the China television series that I had to struggle with because the initial episodes came without English subtitles (i.e. Sad to say, I've only read the epic Romance of the Three Kingdom novels once in my lifetime to date, and an abridged English version at that. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |