Cao, a power-hungry eunuch, is attempting to create his own evil regime beyond the gaze of the Emporor. When Minister of Defence Yang threatens to reveal Cao's plans, he is executed; his two children are spared so that they can be used as bait to lure Yang's allies into a trap.
A band of brave rebels manage to rescue the children, and ride out to The Dragon Gate Inn, a refuge in the desert which is run by brigands. Here they plan their next move, aware that Cao and his followers are hot on their trail...
Having seen some clips of this film on TV and been impressed with the sheer craziness of what I had witnessed, I laid down my hard earned cash for what I hoped would be a prime slice of mad Wuxia action; with Donnie Yen, Maggie Cheung and Brigitte Lin all starring in this Tsui Hark produced epic, I figured this was going to be something special. But an hour in and I was starting to wonder if I had got the wrong film.
Fight fans will be sorely disappointed since the martial arts scenes are so poorly edited that they become confusing and once the characters reach the inn there is next to no action for quite a while; in the meantime we get to watch some rubbish about visitors to the inn being turned into pork buns (a la The Untold Story) and Maggie Cheung unsuccessfully tries it on with Tony Leung.
The crazy action eventually kicks in when Cao's army arrive at the inn. There is a brief fight in the inn which results in a nice bit where someone gets crushed between two mill stones and a gratuitously gory battle in the desert in which everyone gets injured or killed. If the whole affair had been as deliriously barmy as the final 20 minutes then Dragon Gate Inn would have been a classic rather than just another average kung-fu movie.
A band of brave rebels manage to rescue the children, and ride out to The Dragon Gate Inn, a refuge in the desert which is run by brigands. Here they plan their next move, aware that Cao and his followers are hot on their trail...
Having seen some clips of this film on TV and been impressed with the sheer craziness of what I had witnessed, I laid down my hard earned cash for what I hoped would be a prime slice of mad Wuxia action; with Donnie Yen, Maggie Cheung and Brigitte Lin all starring in this Tsui Hark produced epic, I figured this was going to be something special. But an hour in and I was starting to wonder if I had got the wrong film.
Fight fans will be sorely disappointed since the martial arts scenes are so poorly edited that they become confusing and once the characters reach the inn there is next to no action for quite a while; in the meantime we get to watch some rubbish about visitors to the inn being turned into pork buns (a la The Untold Story) and Maggie Cheung unsuccessfully tries it on with Tony Leung.
The crazy action eventually kicks in when Cao's army arrive at the inn. There is a brief fight in the inn which results in a nice bit where someone gets crushed between two mill stones and a gratuitously gory battle in the desert in which everyone gets injured or killed. If the whole affair had been as deliriously barmy as the final 20 minutes then Dragon Gate Inn would have been a classic rather than just another average kung-fu movie.