MovieChat Forums > San guo zhi jian long xie jia (2008) Discussion > I've seen it - Completely unbiased opini...

I've seen it - Completely unbiased opinion.

posted 16 years ago by vismajorx
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I've barely played Dynasty Warriors, and I've never read ROTK although after seeing this film, and reading this baord I'd like to do both. You're all very enthusiastic about the book and I figure you can't all be wrong. But anyways..

In fact, while I was watching this (subtitled) film I kept feeling like there were huge swaths of film missing from what I was watching, and wondered if it had been edited to death or something. I kept saying "Gee I really wish that was more elaborated on.." and "..they could have made this longer, I would have been even more interested in it." and I was pretty much unaware of the connection to the ROTK novels that this film has (it was in the back of my mind and wasn't clear to me until I came here, just now after watching it). It felt like I was watching 'clips of entire scenes', summeries of a longer film with the narration added to let me know what I had missed.

Sorry to have to tell you that.

HOWEVER, on a brighter note I did end up liking the film. Its not great, because of the hacked up story, but its still a hell of a lot better than a many of the films produced by Hollywood these days. And now that I know that the story just focused on the one main character (I know there are some minds wondering about that.. it is certainly all based around one character) I understand why it felt like it was just pieces of a story yet had some sort of arc in there. YET that 'story' was over all.. pretty good. STILL could have been much better, even for ONE of the characters from ROTK it could have been longer with more development for that character.

One thing that bothered me, and maybe it was because of watching it in 4:3 or something, but I don't really think so.. the fight scenes seemed sort of 'clipped' or something. I can't really put my finger on it, but it was hard to tell exactly what was happening during some of the fights and I have to admit that while I don't watch a lot of martial arts films, I do see my share of action films and there was just 'SOMETHING' wrong with a certain aspects of the combat scenes. However it was still 'attractive' to look at most of it, nice costume and 'set' design.

Maggie Q? I don't think I'm really qualified to say how good her acting was or anything, but I do 'feel' like it wasn't on par with the other actors, and her little instrument playing was a bit .. irritating. She could have been acting and speaking instead and I think they could have used that to elaborate on the circumstances during those moments (yes I understand she was dubbed). Other than that though, it was fine. She seemed to be fine, just not AS GOOD as the other actors. It happens in a film, oh well. The main actor was quite good, I enjoyed his work very much. The HERO of the story comes across just fine, except again I felt like there were elements missing that were needed to expand on the character a little bit more. The development of his roll and the film in general, again just felt a little bit rushed. This film could easily have been much longer and it wouldn't have bothered me at all as long as it contributed to the character and films story (of course).

The ending is great. Really emotional. Well done. I won't spoil.

AND! If any director/producers out there are reading this, I want to let you know that there is (at least a small) market over here in Canada to see the WHOLE of the ROTK done as some sort of LOTR type release even if it takes SIX films or whatever really. I'd certainly watch it all.

I'm going to see "RED CLIFF" right now, and I think I may load up Dynasty Warriors 4 after and give that a go as well. But after I see Red Cliff which looks far more heavily produced I'll either review that or get back to you about this film.

-VMX

[–] vismajorx 16 years ago

Well no doubt, Red Cliff was much better. But I feel like its comparing apples to oranges.

It seems to me like Red Cliff might actually be some sort of ROTK trilogy or something? I'll have to check it out. BTW, I don't really remember playing DW much but it seems to me as though this maybe more of a film based on the DW game perhaps (or sort of in tribute to it)? Maybe someone can clear this up for me.

RC was amazing though, I loved it. Can't wait for the sequal.

-VMX

PS: I loved how the rescue of the "Little Lord" was potrayed differently in each film, very interesting. I'm hooked now. I'll have to read the book for certain.

[–] mrbakasan 14 years ago

I've read the books several times and have a detailed understanding of the story. That being said, I would have a very, very difficult time understanding the significance of what was happening in certain scenes in the this movie and Red Cliff, if I was not familiar with it already.

If you haven't read the books it makes sense that it would feel that there are big gaps in the story. This is in part due to certain famous people/parts in the books that everyone is familiar with in China. It would be like if there was a movie about WW2, everyone in the US knows about D-Day and Pearl Harbor so the details about those events could be vague, but there would be some assumption that the audience already is familiar with the events. Sort of a weird analogy I know, but it kind of makes sense.

Point being, I can't imagine completely understanding all the events of this movie and Red Cliff without some cultural context going into the movies....except for that ball game they were playing at the end of Red Cliff 1...which was just stupid.