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Directed by Yimou Zhang |
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| Jet Li |
Maggie Cheung |
| Tony Leung |
Zhang Ziyi |
| Donnie Yen |
Chen Daoming |
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| A
warrior relates his battle victories over the emperor's
three greatest enemies. |
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| One-word
View: Rich |
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| First
of all, let's not compare this to Crouching Tiger Hidden
Dragon. While using the Crouching styles that Ang Lee
introduced to mainstream USA, director Zhang Yimou marches
to his own martial arts drum and it was not a bad tune.
The warrior (Jet) comes to see the King of Qin (Chen)
to prove that he has eliminated the King's three major
adversaries - - Sky (Donnie), Flying Snow (Maggie), and
Broken Sword (Tony) - - and to receive his just rewards.
Many sitcoms have used the vehicle of retelling one
story through the eyes of several people, thus always
having a different hero. Well, this movie is somewhat
similar in format in that we witness very different
versions of the same story, only told by the same people.
Are you confused? Everything is told in flashbacks based
on the conversation between the warrior and the King;
the latter's goal being to combine the battling lands
into one great dynasty.
As was expected, the martial arts choreography was
like watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers glide across
the room. The most obvious bonus was the beautiful colors.
Bold hues and swaying trees and vast open lands highlighted
the story versions. There was an arrow thing that I
want to tell you about so badly, but you just have to
see it for yourself. Admittedly, no matter the rendering
of the truth it all just went on a bit too long. Still,
I liked the fact that there was no one real hero; and
for each character, not unlike ourselves, there were
very definitive strengths and weaknesses.
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