China has been churning out historical war films like there's no tomorrow, and THREE KINGDOMS is yet another in a long line of similar lavish and stylish epics. This one's a co-production with South Korea and sees Andy Lau yet again playing a brave and loyal soldier who finds himself battling immense odds in ancient China.
THREE KINGDOMS certainly looks the part, with hulking battle sequences featuring huge armies massing and meeting on sweeping plains. The quality of the effects is such that you can't tell that some of these soldiers are CGI animations, like in LORD OF THE RINGS; who knows, maybe they aren't! The action choreography is slightly blurry, so that it's easy to miss crucial detail in the battle sequences, and there's a slight over-reliance on wirework, but for the most part this is a vicious, viscous piece of cinematography.
The storyline is equally interesting, with Andy Lau playing a guy who rises from the ranks to become a hero, and Sammo Hung supporting him in an atypical part of a cowardly man who also ends up rising high. Unfortunately, the viewer is also saddled with the overrated Maggie Q (NAKED WEAPON) playing a warrior queen; everything about her screams artifice and hollowness to me, but the good news is that she isn't given too much screen time. More dependable genre stalwarts like Ti Lung and Rongguang Yu are given meaty roles, however.
The first half of the film depicts a fairly typical rise-to-power type storyline, but the second half is much more interesting, with events skipping forward twenty years in the future and the outcome much more uncertain. In fact, it gets better as it goes on, featuring a climax that can only be described as epic in feel. THREE KINGDOMS might be easy to miss amid a welter of similar product, but it's certainly entertaining enough to reward the viewer's attention.
THREE KINGDOMS certainly looks the part, with hulking battle sequences featuring huge armies massing and meeting on sweeping plains. The quality of the effects is such that you can't tell that some of these soldiers are CGI animations, like in LORD OF THE RINGS; who knows, maybe they aren't! The action choreography is slightly blurry, so that it's easy to miss crucial detail in the battle sequences, and there's a slight over-reliance on wirework, but for the most part this is a vicious, viscous piece of cinematography.
The storyline is equally interesting, with Andy Lau playing a guy who rises from the ranks to become a hero, and Sammo Hung supporting him in an atypical part of a cowardly man who also ends up rising high. Unfortunately, the viewer is also saddled with the overrated Maggie Q (NAKED WEAPON) playing a warrior queen; everything about her screams artifice and hollowness to me, but the good news is that she isn't given too much screen time. More dependable genre stalwarts like Ti Lung and Rongguang Yu are given meaty roles, however.
The first half of the film depicts a fairly typical rise-to-power type storyline, but the second half is much more interesting, with events skipping forward twenty years in the future and the outcome much more uncertain. In fact, it gets better as it goes on, featuring a climax that can only be described as epic in feel. THREE KINGDOMS might be easy to miss amid a welter of similar product, but it's certainly entertaining enough to reward the viewer's attention.