Three Kingdoms - Der Krieg der drei Königreiche

Andy Lau stars as a general who started as a foot soldier and worked his way up through the ranks after several acts of heroism.Thirty years on he's forced to fight one last battle against the daughter of an old enemy.

Apparently based on the same source material (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms) that John Woo is using for his 5 hour Red Cliffs (due for release later this year) Here the "epic" story is reduced to around 100 minutes of marching armies and battles. Any sense of plot is cast aside for the fighting and deep pronouncements. To be fair the DVD I watched had barely coherent subtitles, but at the same time they were coherent enough to know that they really didn't have a great deal to translate. The plot lurches from thing to thing with very little explanation- or rather only explanation to carry the emotion. We're told things rather than shown things. The performances of Lau and Sammo Hung provide a great deal of emotion that isn't in the script. The bond between the two men and the emotion that they impart are the reason you watch the film, not for anything else...

...okay maybe the action. As a film of epic action scenes its quite good. its not great but it is is good in a retro old school style. Its pretty pictures of armies fighting and it is entertaining, if rarely engaging (something the films scant dialog and character building prevents from ever happening). Never mind that coming as it does on the heels of the Jet Li masterpiece Warlords the film has a great deal to live up to since that earlier film had real characters and real action, two things this film never manages to achieve. Add to the mix the over use of slow motion and the film really isn't worth the trouble.

Actually its worth looking at if you want to see the fighting and a couple of good performances.

Another Chinese epic film filled with heroes, enormous battle scenes, amazing panoramas and some great actors. Sounds cool and like a sure winner yet its an enormous waste of money and talent.

The battle scenes are a big disappointment. It would be fine if the writers/director/producers created a film that was small on battle scenes big on character development, plot development and dialog. Yet, the battle scenes are the majority of the film and there is no character development, very limited plot development and the dialog is boring and thankfully there's not much of it.

The battle scenes are filled with short cuts which are extremely hard to follow. One cut will have mounted units charging from left to right on the screen and then the next cut will show mounted units charging from right to left. Logically the viewer is led to believe that there are two opposing mounted units charging each other. A few cuts later it becomes apparent that all the mounted units are on the same side and chasing one guy.

The film spends 30-45 minutes on two battle sequences featuring a young Zilong, then 5-7 minutes on an elaborate ceremony featuring a middle aged Zilong and the rest of the film time is spent on the old Zilong.

The cinematography is typical of recent Chinese epics overly beautiful (death never looked so pretty) and big on ceremony. The problem is that it was chopped up like almond-fried chicken. The cinematography could have been the saving grace of this film however it was edited by someone on crack. The result is that it is beautifully confusing.

If you are looking for another great or at least entertaining Chinese epic film look elsewhere. There really is no reason to watch this film unless you are curious to the point of being masochistic as I often am.

It seems as though it is only a half finished project. A first time joint venture- a major motion picture project put together by the Chinese and the Korean production teams, the Chinese took part in pre-production; from writing up the screen play to directing (a Chinese guy who made Jet Li's "Black Mask), acting & filming while the Korean team took care of most of the post production (& funding), the CGI, and scoring.

With almost unlimited amount of funding and the pool of world-class production talents in Asia, I cannot help but wonder how an opportunity like this could have gone this wrong. The famous Chinese classic- the three kingdoms - is an epic war story that one could not find its proper match in its scale in any part of the world. The movie deserved more than only a 90 min. duration. Why Why Why did the director and its team decide to cut out anything that resembled a real drama? Who knows. Jhon Woo wanted to give the project a proper attention, so in his upcoming three kingdoms project,'the red cliff' he is devoting 4 hours to tell the story.

The action sequences, camera works, set designs, costumes, and props, and even the score, you name it, they were all top notch. But Why? Why no Drama? Why could't the director decide to use another 30 more minutes to supplement the sheer absence of story-telling and the sufficient characterization of each of the major characters ? It would only have made the film 120 minutes, which is still within the main stream block buster length range. Besides I bet that anyone who came to see the movie must have expected something more of a... "brave heart" type of epic story and heart wrenching human drama and understood appreciatively even if the movie went more than 2 hours.

What a waste...indeed !!! I am a big fan of Three kingdoms and Any Lau, so i will always love any project that has anything to do with those 2 elements, but this one.... oh... a surprisingly disappointing project, indeed. I gave it a 5 out of ten, because as I mentioned, the picture is only a half-finished and at least that half was pretty good.

Well, This is the first time that I came here. Actually, it is because of this movie made me come here! Because he is a Korean Director, I can bear and forgive his unknowns about the real and reasonable history of Three Kingdoms of Ancient China. But there is something I can't bear, and I am sure nobody had known Ancient China can bear.

The costumes(or Amor), I am sure they are all Japannese Style! I am not want to cause any racism arguments, but it is Chinese History, what's hell you give the worries Japannese Amors? Can I shoot a movie about Civil War of US but give them Ancient European Amors? And also there are many many unreasonable details about the story. Our Forums have discussed how bad and how stupid about this story~~~~Well, I know most of u guys can't understand what I am saying. Overall, it is not a good story, but it may be a good WAR FILM which made people excited.

The top review I see on here asks why this movie isn't getting higher ratings. I counter: why should it? What should be a masterful story is ruined by absolutely poor directing. This movie seeks to do such much in a short amount of time. If this movie were another hour long, maybe they could've squeezed everything in. Instead, you have back stories that don't get fleshed out, people who become major characters out of nowhere and then suddenly its supposed to be emotional when they get killed, and decades of time passing with barely any filler of what happened in that time. And what is up with the ending? There is no catharsis, there is no meaning behind any of the actions that occur, there is just superfluous and emptiness. And why even throw in that hint of a love story? Nothing ever gets spoken of it again. Everything that occurs is just pointless.

If you are looking for a Chinese war movie simply to pass some time, this is watchable. Beyond that, there are many other movies in that genre that are more enjoyable and well crafted.