14 Schwerter

When I purchased this movie from Amazon, it was with a certain amount of expectation to it; because it had Cecilia Cheung in it, plus it also brandished "impressive" and "a genre breakthrough" on the cover. Uhm, yeah, what genre are they making a breakthrough in? Having seen the movie, I sit here somewhat dazzled. Why? Well, because the movie was only partially as I had expected it to be. The good part about the movie is that it is sort of an epic movie in itself, and they managed to build up a good sense of believability with the sets and the whole feeling to the movie.

The armors and the costumes in the movie were amazing to look at. There were so many small details in everything that it was just spectacular. And that is one of the better parts of the movie, because they really managed to bring the feel of the given era to life on the screen.

And the battle scenes were grand and mostly epic. Lots of really nice fighting, action and choreography here. You might notice that I said 'mostly'. Yeah, because there were scenes during the fight that were painfully obviously staged and looked that way as well.

The less than impressive aspects of the movie, were many of the death scenes were just hilarious to look at, reminding me of something from the old black and white movie genre. You see someone struggling, then falling down awkwardly and laying still. It was just too staged and fake, and most of the death scenes in the movie here were just among some of the worst death scenes I have seen in similar movies.

Another thing that didn't really aid the movie in its progress was the way the director attempted to mix epic warfare with the petty feudal matters of a house in the royal Chinese army. It just seemed a little bit too much - delving a bit too far into being a Chinese soap opera.

And finally, there were just too many characters to keep track of, and you just ended up shrugging your shoulders whenever one of the Yang family died, because you had no idea who it was or had any particular kind of 'on-screen relationship' to that person. It was like they were all extras in the frame just to add to the chaos.

In overall, then "Legendary Amazons" - despite its cheesy title - is an average movie of this genre; nothing breakthrough to be had here. There are far better movies available in the same genre. And truth be told, then Cecilia Cheung and Richie Ren did little to raise the appeal of the movie. It was a fairly average experience, and hence, the 5 out of 10 rating from me.

Excellent movie with awesome action, extraordinary pictures and contain unforgettable specials effects. Cheng Pei-Pei is as talented as always and Cecilia Cheung is still talented and beautiful .Thank you to the great Frankie Chan for this beautiful movie and thank you for all the movies you have done and played in the past with all these grand Chinese stars movies like Chen Kuan Tai, Ti Lung, David Chan,Derek Yee and many others stars.

From a fan who love you and who love the great movies in which all of you had shined in the past.

I can't really like this oriental style with its dancing struggles, nor the female empowerment made me fall in love with this film, uninteresting...

This is a pretty bad movie with some crappy acting and story. I am not sure if it's intentional or not but the whole thing just comes off humorous, especially because of the acting. The story is nothing interesting just men warriors losing a battle and women warriors picking up arms to fight in their husbands place. The whole movie is a cheese fest, even the action is super cheesy and looks so fake...Although it's entertaining to watch. Watching the fight sequences is like watching someone play "Dynasty Warriors". The only thing that makes this movie watchable is the fight sequences even if their is no logic when it comes to physics and cheesy. Which might work if it's a comedic kung-fu movie that doesn't take itself seriously but has a cleverly integrated plot. But that isn't the case for this movie and when it tries to integrate some story into it. I was like "okay this is boring and dull, lets get back to the cheesy action". I am not fond of Cecilia Chung these days as an actress and she is pretty bad in this movie. There is quite a lot of characters in this movie but they are so underdeveloped I didn't care who lives or who dies. As a matter of fact I wasn't quite sure which character was dying or fighting even though some dramatic movie plays with other characters weeping or have the sad face. Just watch for the cheesy action scenes and not the story or the acting and you might be fine watching this.

4/10

The Legendary Amazons looks great on paper, produced and funded by Asian superstar Jackie Chan, aided by a huge budget to burn, a quality cast list of Richie Ren, Cecilia Cheung, the return of much missed Kathy Chow and old school veteran Cheng Pei-Pei and directed by a veteran in the HK film industry in Frankie Chan. So what exactly went wrong? The answer is everything. From the lame and weak script, cheesy acting, extremely poor directing and execution, The Legendary Amazons promises a lot, but delivers absolutely nothing. When you have one of the best actresses in Hong Kong cinema in Cecilia Cheung, one wonders how she can turn in a career suicide performance. Apart from the NT$30 million pay check that she received from the role, her performance here is laughable at best and a far cry from the days of being acclaimed in Lost in Time and A Nite in Mongkok. Richie Ren is one actor that have improved dramatically in the past decade and in particular due to his involvement in numerous Johnny To's films, but here, he lacks presence, more wooden than Edison Chen and his character is far to distant for the audience to feel for him. Perhaps the best thing in the film comes in the form of the much missed Kathy Chow and despite her limited screen time, she graced the film with the same determination like she did 13 years ago in the grity Beast Cops. Still, the shoulder of blame should be attributed to Frankie Chan, a director who have not done much in the past decade and have not made a decent film in almost 20 years. With such a huge budget on the ball, what was Jackie Chan thinking? Couldn't he have at least gone for someone who can handle epic commercial war movies like Benny Chan or himself? These are all questions that are no longer of importance, as the fact is out there – The Legendary Amazons is a bad film and there are no excuses to be made.

All in all, The Legendary Amazons fails big time, especially with all the talent involved. To say The Legendary Amazons is a bad film is an understatement, as not only did it fail to meet expectations, but it is an outright disappointing effort. If not for some good action scenes and the grand scale of the battle scenes, the film will not even be watchable. Still, for such a film, being watchable is not good enough and let's hope this is just a one off mis-step from Cecilia Cheung, as this is easily her worst performance in her career. It is that disappointing…

Neo rates it 3/10