The Lost Bladesman

If you are admirer of the Romance of The Three Kingdoms, it is a must see. If you are fan of martial arts, it is a must see, too. If you have the nostalgia about Three Kingdoms series, it is , off course, a must see. But, more important, it is a correct version , in each detail , of the story of Guan Yu . And that defines it, near the performance of Donnie Yen , as a nice option for a not remarcable but surrely good film.

The movie underperformed at the local box-office at the time of its' initial release. The main factor for its' "failure" was Donnie Yen -- standing at 5' 8" -- portraying a real-life soldier and war general that was bigger and supposedly much taller (more than 6'). But since there's no proof of Guan Yu's height and size, there's only alot you can do to imagine the historical figure's appearance that would come close to the facts.

Directing duo Alan Mak and Felix Chong does something that no other filmmaker would dare doing: Doing their own interpretation of Guan Yu without any myths surrounding his worship-like and over-the-top/exaggerated status, and sticking to the roots as realistically as possible. For that, I think they did a great job creating a totally humanizing version of Guan Yu and Donnie Yen making the character relatable to pretty much anyone situated on historical and modern battlefields. Donnie himself gets to showcase his acting skills once again, and his performance deserves applauds for not going his own route of method acting but actually immersing himself into the character without flaws apart from the dialogue being dubbed in Mandarin, which affects his overall acting (Donnie's a native Cantonese speaker) a bit. However, Jiang Wen as Cao Cao is the movie's true standout with his strong charisma and very impressive acting.

Moving on to the action scenes... It's freaking great! Truly inspirational and undoubtedly the best fight scenes of its' type (Chinese weaponry in warring scenarios) in a very long time. Donnie has said many times that he's setting a goal to break new grounds in action choreography for each production and this is what he's providing us with here as well: Originality and lots of guts breaking away from conventions. Donnie continues to learn new tricks and improving as an action director, and this movie shows it despite being released over 10 years ago.

TFor starters, Donnie Yen as Guan Yu certainly raised a few eyebrows, although you realize the filmmakers may have wanted to break conventions. I can live with that, having Guan Yu more of Donnie's physical stature, although traded off with being a little bit more nimble. While Yen's portrayal of Guan's fighting prowess is excellent par none, with the actor also taking up action choreography responsibilities, his dramatic range is undoubtedly hampered, nary breaking into a smile (which is a good thing after that very smiley performance in All's Wel, Ends Well 2011). Thankfully this got compensated by the presence of Jiang Wen as Cao Cao, adding much needed gravitas to a role that Jiang excelled in making Cao both a hero and a villain, who on the outside does and makes everything fine and dandy for Guan Yu, but harbouring deep evil beneath the facade that we see behind closed doors amongst his most loyal of generals.

And given that the set action sequences are spaced far apart, it is Jiang Wen who prevented the film from sagging in its middle act, as we see Cao Cao's dogged pursuit to build camaraderie with Guan Yu, and wonders just what it takes to have men of quality joining his ambition to rule all of China. Meanwhile we have a romantic interlude that deals with Guan Yu's infatuation with Qi Lan (Sun Li) the woman he loves but cannot woo because she is betrothed to Liu Bei. While this was inserted to show how Guan Yu is a man who sacrifices personal happiness for others, what with his saving of her skin a number of times and with his escorting her back to Liu Bei's camp, this was perhaps the weakest link in the story given Yen's unconvincing performance, and Sun Li's role being nothing more than decorative and a pretty face to build on the temptation factor.

But the second half picked up from where the first scene left off, with large action pieces to thrill audiences with Guan Yu in full battle, despite not having his famed Green Dragon Crescent Blade with him, nor the story of the Red Hare steed incorporated, which would be a nice touch to build on established mythos. Yen shows why he still has it in him as a top notch action star and choreographer with a variety of fighting styles and mano a mano battles against opponents hell bent on slaying his Guan Yu to gain instant recognizing and fame. The characters Guan Yu come up against are adapted from the infamous Five Passes Crossing, which happened because of Cao Cao's instruction to go against his own word, or that of his subordinates' defiance of orders (which is why Jiang Wen is best here as an astute politician presented with a dilemma with trying to please one man at the risk of losing loyalties of the others), and becomes almost like a computer game with the clearing of one boss level after another.

There's Kong Xiu (Andy On) refusal of safe passage resulting in a fight within a constricted passageway getting in the way of weapons in full swing (sort of reminiscing Yen's swordplay in Tsui Hark's Seven Swords), Han Fu's betrayal and his poisoned dart episode, Bian Xi's ambush with hundreds within a temple, and the governor Wang Zhi's fight with Guan Yu in a snow covered landscape, which is probably the best amongst them all despite losing plenty of backstory that builds up to the fight. Come to think of it, there was a conscious drop of background to how Guan Yu got to each stage which removes plenty of drama, and made it really look like Guan Yu going on a rampage to rid all who stood in his way.

The cinematography also was found to be left very much wanting with one extended fight sequence shot very much in the dark so much so that you can hardly see anything, except knowing that Guan Yu is dispatching a lot of goons repeatedly, and Bian Xi's episode was also quite the let down in a cheat sheet of shots, stylistically quite innovative, but with doors closed and plenty of noise coming from within before revealing the obvious winner, you would have hoped the camera was placed on the other side instead. Perhaps it will be there as a deleted scene in the DVD. And while I mentioned this isn't your usual gigantic Guan Yu, Donnie Yen's fight choreography may have confused him with Chen Zhen which Donnie also played in The Legend of the Fist (directed by Andrew Lau), having Guan execute dexterous moves as seen in that film running around in a circle and dodging arrows which seemed to have been fired from a machine gun. I'm all for reinterpretation, but adopting something so recent from one's own film (perhaps he really liked those moves to repeat them here again), is shortchanging fans and audiences, coming so recent.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms cannot possibly be made into a one off feature film, but it contains a lot of stories and characters that serve as a wealth of resource material to tap upon for translation to the big screen. This probably isn't the best and won't be the last of the lot, and despite its flaws, still managed to turn in some pure entertainment, although with the pedigree of talent involved, one can be forgiven to have expected a lot more.

--This is the only thing I don't like about foreign films, is the cruelty to animals that some of them have, at At 44:49 they clearly bust the legs of a horse. This disappointed me as I was trying to get into it, finally found a martial arts movie with out people flying around. --I wish I could post something good, but the horse thing blinds me to any merits the movie may or may not have.

The subtitles are done well, costumes look good, the gals are youngish.

I just wish movies like these with killing animals in this fashion were censored or something, its not the first time i've seen modern foreign films with this kind of footage, my take is its a lot cheaper for movie makers in other countries to implement this kind of thing, instead of a lot of CGI.

A partial tale of perhaps the most famous warrior in Chinese history, Guan Yu.

To me, Donnie Yen was a miscast as Guan Yu. He just doesn't have the physical appearance that you'd expect Guan Yu to be (which he had in abundance when he played Yip Man). But there is no one, I mean no one in current Chinese movie actors inventory who can pull this role off. Other movies that portrays the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, cleverly avoids putting any of the monstrously powerful warriors from this story on screen (or relegates them to relatively insignificant role in the story that don't require them to showcase their terrific might). Maybe if they can find equivalent of Chris Hemsworth when they made the movie "Thor", movies portraying the heroes of this story will succeed.

The movie just didn't have it. It lacked the juice that story of Guan Yu has in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. His enemies were all pathetic shrimps too. There was no big battle scenes where Guan Yu would dispatch the most ferocious warriors the enemy can call to bear on him. Supporting characters, lacked the flare that the characters in the original story has. Also, why the movie chose this particular segment of Guan Yu's career to be put on screen is a mystery. It was one of the flattest part of his story.

Maybe it'll take a CG to produce a character that would even remotely resemble Guan Yu, and the other heroes of this story.

A dud, and just doesn't do any justice to the magnificent lore of Guan Yu.