Dang kou feng yun

I don't often watch historical Chinese movie but with God of War(2017) it a different story.Directed by Gordon Chan starring Sammo Hung,Wenzhuo Zhao and a handful of talented actors God of War deliver anything you want from a epic historical movie.The stand alone fight scene is well choreographed and the big action set pieces scene is just so bloody and brutal.Many fan of Sammo Hung will disappointed with this movie cause the real star is Wenzhuo Zhao when he sold the role as a brave general that also very afraid of his wife.It not the best movie China can offer but in the meantime it sure gonna entertain many people.Strongly suggest watch on theater

Wow, this was one hell of a ride! If you like martial arts and warfare, you NEED to watch this movie! The epic sword fighting scenes in particular, especially the final fight, are a must watch! None of that flying nonsense you get in Hero or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon either, this is (very) fast, gritty, and realistic sword fighting! And you get LOTS of it! There are also several intense and mesmerising scenes of warfare, and there's lots of bloody violence, so you better be ready for that. There is some great cinematography as well. It doesn't have the same kind of high caliber dramatic story or acting as movies like Red Cliff (although these are still good), and there isn't as much fancy strategy as in some other good warfare movies (but it still has a fair amount of it), but the action is top tier! Personally I found this to be one of the most satisfying movies I've watched all year, after having watched tons and tons of mediocre or disappointing movies both from The West and The East this year (including many I had high hopes for...). So if you like warfare and warfare strategy, martial arts, and especially sword fighting, or all of the above, then definitely watch this as soon as you can!

My preference is for period pieces over modern day settings (especialy not the Hong Kong cop thrillers). I watched this a day after rewatching the "Seven Samuri" and was inrtigued by the number of blunderblusses available given there were only three in 7 Samuri (set some decades later). Also I learned this must have taken place in the pre-isolationist period of Japan as they were trying to take over coastal China through pirate cloaking. I enjoyed the many subplots: ronin trying to be samuri, peasants trying to be soldiers but especially the singlemindedness of General Qi's wife.

The film's cinematography (composition, colour, camera movement) was reminiscent of Kagemusha, the Shadow Warrior. The Japanese and Chinese were given a balance of presentation and at times I was not sure who to root for. Intrigues at the Chinese court placed the story line at another level. The Japanese general kept to the lie that he was no more than a pirate. An honourable undertaking in capturing this little known period (to Westerners at least) with elegance, elan and enthralling story telling.

This is a very traditional way that Chinese movie makers kept doing. Slow tempo, wasted lot of money on settings, costumes, attire accessories, uniforms, weaponry....formatted dialog, predictable scenarios.....rigid 1 dimensional acting, no-brain directing, etc and etc.

But among all of these clichés, the worst in this film is the pathetic soundtrack. The first viewer has already pointed out this awful arrangement, but the problem of the western styled music is not just that bad, it's problem the music director or soundtrack supervisor used a music that got nothing to do with every scene, it just repeatedly played on and on; in fighting scenes, in the camp, during dialog, it just played on with the same tune, same tone. It's the soundtrack that bothered me so severely, so I just have to quit watching. What a stupid and boring movie. Another living example how the Chinese movie makers never understood how to spent the budget wisely. The fighting scenes are okay, but they were ruined by the emotionless soundtrack.

It is a great movie, accurately telling the history between Japan and China in Ming dynasty. I especially love the 1-1 fight scene of General Qi and Commander Kumasawa and the languages were spoken in both Mandarin and Japanese. It also showed the characters of Chinese and Japanese. If you know nothing about the history, you might get bored, but you will enjoy this movie very much if you know a little bit of the story.