Three Kingdoms - Der Krieg der drei Königreiche

I like eastern movies, that are build around dynasties and wars and such. Even a lesser effort like this can be entertaining for me. I've said it before though, since I've watched MUSA, no other movie has come close to that! It's difficult to make another one, that would be in the same vein. While this one couldn't hold up to that, it's not able to hold up to other movies too (even from recent future, like THE WARLORDS, with Jet Li and Andy Lau).

All in all, this is quite nice, the action is decent, the story moves along with a good pace and it's quite enjoyable overall. If you will like it or not, depends on your view of movies in that genre/vein. Just don't expect anything great and you won't be disappointed!

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.

Such an epic movie! It has beautiful battle scenes and the main character Zhao Zilong is just a beast and a half. Like seriously the mans blood is probably what was used to create steroids. Also Cao Ying played by Maggie Q is such a well done character and Maggie's portrayal was brilliant, not to mention that she is a gorgeous actress.

The movie has a great cast and a the action scenes and emotions are played out really well.

My ONLY criticism to the movie is a slightly weaker storyline. I'm not saying you won't enjoy it as I definitely did, I am just saying that they could have maybe had a slightly better and improved storyline as I felt the movie was a bit short.

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.

To be brief, this movie was a disappointment.

The reasons are simple - it lacks any characterization, the whole story feels like a synopsis, not a full story. Scenes and images flashed by as if we are scanning (selected) pages of a novel, with no real details given.

I thought Andy Lau was good for the role and I didn't even mind Maggie Q's role; the samurai-like armor; the Wei forces' helmets resembling Stahlhelms (Nazi helmets) and the Shu's are like British soldiers being so obvious. These are cosmetic and artistic choices and didn't pose as a serious distraction. (The brief appearances of some other main ROTK characters were done just right and did provide a nice glimpse into what might have been part of a more romantic epic.) But still, give more meat to the story and characters, make it a real movie, not a hundred minutes long trailer.