Part martial arts movie, part historical epic, director Peter Chan's film 'The Warlords' recreates the Taiping rebellion in China. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a mess; both in terms of the movements in the action scenes, and in terms of the high politics, I found it very hard to follow who exactly was doing what to whom; but all too easy to get the general drift of a movie that was big on set pieces but low on subtlety. Most crucially, the film conveys no idea whatsoever of what the rebellion was actually about in its story of three "blood brothers" motivated solely by personal oath. The result: lots of blood, but not too much in the way of enlightenment.
Review of The Warlords
