Le dernier royaume

This is a movie about an event that actually happened in Chinese history, but it takes artistic license and changes what happened in reality. The result is an almost unrecognizable story to what happened with Liu Bang and Xiang Yu during the war of Chu-Han contention.

The story is about one of the most famous war in Chinese history between the two rivals Liu Bang and Xiang Yu for the control of entire China. History is clear about who the winner is and Liu Bang becomes the first emperor of the Han dynasty. But this is one of the most exciting story in Chinese history next to "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms".

Whatever they changed from the historical story actually made the story worse. I have no idea why the producers chose to make the story into the drama that is this movie. The plot of the original story is far better than this story. There is no build up to the conflict that happens in the real story of Liu Bang and Xiang Yu. It also doesn't show why Xiang Yu who was clearly winning at the start, ended up losing his force, and eventually gets surrounded by Liu Bang's army. Feast at the Hong gate was one of the turning point of this war, and Xiang Yu had a once in a life time opportunity to kill Liu Bang, but failed to cash in on this opportunity. He never recovered from this mistake, and his tactics meanders after this meeting until his eventual demise.

There is so much highlight scenes in this war, and the characters were all so interesting, but this movie screwed all of this up. All the good details of the story never made it into this movie. The two hour long movie could easily have been an hour and a half if the useless drama the script writer inserted into the story were edited out.

Failure of script writing is the ultimate downfall of this movie. Compared to "The Red Cliff I and II" where director John Woo carefully inserted his interpretation to the story, which made that story so good, this movie had no such story telling behind it.

Too bad, for the money they put into this movie, it could have been another "Assassin" level production. A better movie about Liu Bang and Xiang Yu is awaited with more spot light on the interesting characters, and build up to the story.

i partially agree with joe sun's review, but disagree that movies if borrowed from historical incidents had to match the facts correctly. but using historical stuff and making into movies indeed is not an easy task to avoid comparison judgment. this movie, inevitably would be judged critically like other Chinese movies with the similar historical I.O.U. facts. but it's not the problem that i consider this movie is another immediate failure when Chinese movie investors and producers tried to make a movie out of the ancient Chinese history. because the screenplay is simply so bad. it not only twisted the historical incident to serve the storyline conveniently but also failed to give all the characters enough background to develop. the whole plot only started from in the middle of the incident and then tried so hard to mix romance, fatal love, fatal decisions in battles. it neither sowed enough seeds to allow characters to develop into full-grown roles, nor sowed too less to narrow a straight storyline. furthermore, since it's about a war and battles between too civil militia forces, they had to use lot of fighting scenes to accommodate the background, so they had to use lot of meaningless footage to portray such highly CGI effect boring scenes and at the same time wasted a lot of production budget to furnish the scenes. actors cast for this movie are the popular ones but not all on the same level, the actor who played Liu Bang, is a rare species by always acting so rigidly like mummy but could still become a movie icon level figure. the story of the triangle romance also failed miserably, even laughable. fighting scenes are so formulaic, so boring to the extreme. every ingredient in this movie were wrongly and mistakenly used and put in, there's nothing right about this movie. my final verdict about this movie:

screenplay: 0/10 directing: 3/10 acting: 5/10 boring meter: 10/10

even with English or any other language subtitle, without the help of the basic knowledge of Chinese history, this movie would only fall into a big screen war movie produced from china. nothing else. viewers would only get a vague impression as another formulaic Chinese war movie mixed with some Chinese kung fu fighting scenes, lot of armors, swords, spears.... lot of beard and mustaches and, unavoidably with a sprinkle of pointless romance.

Here's a swordplay film that takes its time developing its story and characters. "White Vengeance" is an elaborate, sumptuous, and often lavish epic film, ambitiously crafted by Daniel Lee ("Black Mask"). In the heart of the frantic battle sequences lies a thriller that thrills by its characters planning and trying to outwit, manipulate, and defeat one another.

Leon Lai and Feng Shao-Feng portray the two scheming leads, in an absorbing character study of the two. I was at a loss as to who was actually tyrannical or valiant. While both actors are good in their roles, Lai dominates the show with his subtle and effective performance, showing calm and reserve even at dangerous times. Zhang Hanyu and veteran Anthony Wong portray advisers to the two leads, with Hanyu showing a sombre aura despite looking wise; Wong borders on over-acting during the Banquet scene but improves greatly in his scenes after that.

From the mysterious opening to its melancholic ending, its characters that are full of wit and brains, this film never lets up on the complexity of the plot. I love films which take their time developing their key characters (bonus points if said characters are elaborate schemers) so I was pleasantly surprised that this film had done so, in a length of just under two and a half hours. Slow-paced? Maybe. Boring? Absolutely not. It is the characterization and elaborate scheming that makes it so exciting to watch; as time progresses the characters' motives become more and more entangled, and morals are questioned during the melancholic final 30 minutes of the movie, which elevate this epic film from good to near-great. Readers of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" may want to give this one a watch, here is a film which blends strategy with motive very effectively, to an extent where those traits are blurred.

However, like many swordplay films before, this one features the usual - elaborate and colorful costumes and production design, crisp cinematography, and an atmospheric music score to bring it home. "White Vengeance" somewhat strays from the music score part; it doesn't sound like the typical Chinese swordplay film, it sounds much more haunting than melodramatic. The cinematography, however is superb and will remind film buffs of similar shots in previous English epic films such as "Braveheart" or "The Lord of the Rings".

For all the stuff it got right, I am willing pass over the fact that some of the CG effects look awful and unnecessary, and that some of the stunts (including the battle at the Banquet) are too elaborate for its kind (but not reaching Yuen Woo-Ping levels).

All is well with the Chinese swordplay film. Lee has proudly claimed this film as the best movie he's made in his career. Not having seen all of his other films, I can't say, but he certainly has made a very good one.

Overall rating: 78/100

Zhang Hanyu and Huang Qiusheng gave us excellent performance.I love the strategies and ending.

Granted it did start off in rather disorientating factor, especially if one is not acutely aware of the historical event known as the Feast at Hong Gate between rivals Liu Bang (Leon Lai) and Xiang Yu (Feng Shaofeng), warlords who have been pitted against each other by the last emperor of Qin in order to seek the benefits from bickering amongst the insurgent ranks. Both are serving King Huai of Chu, but in essence both are seeking the highest post of the land, each with very different characteristics and styles that will determine the kind of rulership should either ascend the throne, with Xiang Yu seen as the more ruthless of the duo, and Liu Bang the more compassionate.

But of course this is not a history lesson, and while most of the proceedings at Hong Gate were fairly covered, Daniel Lee's input for artistic license and merit served the film well. The introduction had been jarring no thanks to flashbacks and rapid fire introductions to a multitude of historical and fictitious characters that will serve to confuse the clueless (like myself initially), but do hang in there as soon after you'll start to see past all the bearded men, their ranks and their loyalties in each faction of the rivalry and center upon the characters who matter. It is the buildup to the events at Hong Gate, and the Hong Gate proceedings itself which is truly impressive, that White Vengeance truly shifted into top gear, and never relented in its pacing all the way to a gripping finale full of twists and turns, conflict and schemes,

Like the game of choice in Go / Weiqi, White Vengeance played out like a measured chess game, with each side pondering and second guessing the opponent's move, and plotting its own counter-strategy way in advance. The strengths of the story lay in its effortless balance between brawn and brain, with action left to the likes of Andy On, who played Han Xin, a general who jumped ship and swap loyalties for appreciation, and even Jordan Chan himself to bring along that rebellious streak always out to look for a good fight. But the spotlight was definitely on Anthony Wong as Xiang Yu's counselor Fan Zeng and his rival Zhang Lian, played by the very charismatic Zhang Hanyu, serving on the side of Liu Bang.

Both men inevitably stole the show for their brainy schemes to allow their respective masters to gain a leg up against the opponent, and the shifting advantages made this film very much engaging to sit through, culminating in their initial face to face meeting at the iconic Hong Gate which is filled with treachery, betrayal, and a simultaneous five game of Go that serves as the highlight. And this came pretty early in the film as well, in fact setting the stage for more plotting outside of this one time event, that will serve as the catalyst for an elaborate, extrapolated scheme.

Daniel Lee seemed adamant this time round in balancing action with plot, and has his craftsmen to thank for in setting up gorgeous looking interior sets with CG landscapes, forts and castles that no longer exist, that didn't look as fake as those found in his earlier two films. Cinematography by Tony Cheung was also beautiful, especially with its shadow and light play and balance, allowing the film to stand out as one of the more gorgeous looking films to capture the action on screen, and the quieter moments that Lee's story called for when exploring options, and its characters.

Between the two leads who play the rivals Xiang Yu and Liu Bang, Feng Shaofeng seemed to have a lot more spectrum in showing Xiang Yu's obsessive and ruthless side, as compared to the Leon Lai, whose singular expression served him well in this role of Liu Bang of having his truest innermost thoughts held extremely close to his chest, nuanced in a way that will make you sit up and evaluate just who amongst the lot is the master schemer. And then there's Anthony Wong versus Zhang Hanyu, veterans in their respective film markets playing opposing strategists, chewing up the scenery with their sheer screen presence, although the latter actor did edge out on screen charisma thanks to a longer screen time that allowed audiences to understand a bit more about Zhang Liang, as compared to Wong's portrayal of Fan Zeng who seemed more like an eccentric shaman.

If there's a weak link in the film, it's the unfortunate introduction of Liu Yifei's character Yu Ji, as the lover of Xiang Yu who should also have some sort of romantic dalliance with Liu Bang to further their rivalry, but this was not quite to be since it wasn't fleshed out in detail. It could have brought the hatred between the men to another more personal level but that was not to be, instead the Yu Ji arc can be totally omitted, and not serve to diminish the story any one bit. I suppose Liu Yifei is included as a need to balance the level of testosterone in the film.

But the payload of the film, even if you've been entertained by the bloodbath and battle of wits on screen, came in the final act that truly sealed this as a masterpiece effort from Daniel Lee. It hammers home points about the wielding of power and how man's pursuit of that absolute leads to natural paranoia as seen in so many madmen dictators, that the mantra of trusting no one rings home, giving rise to regrets and remorsefulness in not having done better than to succumb to the trappings that power brings about, with what price ambition. And the tying up of some loose ends, with nuances now magnified, served to unmask true intentions, and that sometimes one can never know the truth about someone, until perhaps it's a little too late.