Director : Ping He
Written by : Ping He
Cast : Kiichi Nakai, Xueqi Wang, Bagen Hasi, Vicki Zhao, Tao Ho, LInian Lu, Deshun Wang & Yeerjiang Mahepushen

Synopsis
A Japanese emissary is sent to the Gobi desert to execute a renegade soldier. When a caravan transporting a Buddhist monk and a valuable treasure is threatened by thieves, however, the two warriors might unite to protect the travelers.

Review
by Edward Tang

This is an example of a great film that was probably tailor made to have something of a notice in the states. Like your “Crouching Tiger” and “Hero”, it’s an epic film with great action sequences and top notch acting/story. But covering familiar ground seems to be the constant with films of this nature, and it doesn’t change here. The film looked good and remained good until the ending. Everything up until that point was great, but the ending seemed rushed and out of place. What we were shown was good enough for me, but how the events unfolded left a sour taste in my mouth, considering we had been along with these characters for almost 2 hours and the harsh tone wasn’t needed. But as in all films of this caliber, it saves itself with a great bunch of actors whom pull the reigns of this film. Both main characters (whom wanted each other dead) pulled off their roles with great respect, you didn’t want either of them to face each other at the end. 

The story follows Lai Xi, a Japanese soldier whom is sent to kill a renegade soldier named Li (whose crime was not killing a bunch of women and children, yeah). Li on the other hand gets saved in the desert by a soldier, who was one of the last surviving members of a caravan, which was moving a Buddhist and a bunch of Buddhist writings to a different city. Li promises to help the soldier get the caravan to its destination for saving his life. After Li meets up with his old friends, he goes to search for some guards that can help him make a safe pass through the desert. Whilst this occurs, Lai Xi has caught up with Li and they go into battle. Since of the situation, Lai Xi promises to meet him at the city to continue their duel, so that the caravan can make it their in one peace. Meanwhile, Master An has been hired to take down the caravan and take their possessions. During their trek through the desert, they are taken over by bandits whom are learned to be under the reigns of An. Lai Xi who has been following them, embarks to help them fight off the goons. After the escape, they question the Buddhist of why they were being chased. He tells them of the Buddhist relic that he has in his possession, and they witness its beauty. Barely making it out of the desert alive, they come across an abandoned fort. They case it with weapons and fend it off until they can’t anymore. 

I’ll leave some of the plot open for your viewing. On my first idea of this film, I really enjoyed it for everything it dished out. The story moved along nicely and was explained by a voice-over from the woman character. Voice over can be abused to the point and get irritating, but her voice was calm and sweet and did the job for explaining the easy going plot. Everything else was piled on in basic strategy: take a great item, take the guards of it, take the men who want the great item for themselves, and finally take them defending the such item and to close with a familiar plot. But seeing the good bits of dialog and the great performances, everything seemed to flow like water. 

The acting was great, especially the performances of the men who portrayed Li and Lai Xi. Both characters were likable and everything in between from them looked good. Vicki Zhao, whom was the only female in this film, seemed to have the question complex. Her goal was to narrate the film and give us a little bit of a personality, someone to understand all of the characters, and to be in with the mix. The rest of the cast is notable as well, the man who portrayed An was great as well. His villain was pretty much the powerful bastard, he had the men and he had the power to get what he wanted. But guess what? His power wasn’t greater than God’s, he would later find out. I must say that if it was another cast, I don’t think this film would be as good as it was. 

Amongst all of the beautiful shots of the desert and the wonderful performances, there does lie some very good action scenes. Particularly the final scene at the fort, but still as in a whole the film has enough action to satisfy an asshole like me. (I’m an asshole). I liked the symbolism as well, a character named Old Diehard is killed and plants his sword into the ground, and a large amount of water shoots from the sand. It reminded of an old quote that I heard a while back, “In death, he brought us life.” I thought it was pretty damn cool as well. The end was pretty much a fight to the death, only when a “mystical” force was brought upon, did the heroes succeed in their final mission. 

Finally, after I was reading the DVD box, I noticed that this film is compared to Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. What the hell? Trust me, you won’t see anything that you saw in Hero/Crouching Tiger in this film. Maybe something on the lines of a overall moral of humanity (heh) but there aren’t any f*cking wires in this film. But what you do get in this film, is a good story backed up with great action and awesome performances. See it, it’s definitely worth a view, and just maybe you can find whomever put Crouching Tiger on the box, and kick them in their face. (Don’t mention me).

Rating
Plot : 4/5
Acting : 3/5
Entertainment : 4/5
Overall : 4/5

Notable Scenes
- the “raiding” of the fort

Buy this movie at YesAsia - Warrior of Heaven and Earth

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Last Modified : September 9th, 2007 Filed under : China, Movies Navigate : Previous post / Next post