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Cool calculus - this was my first feeling when I saw this very disappointing Chinese film. Chen Kaige was years ago a good director, but now he wanted to beat the attractions of Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and Zhang Yimous "Hero". No chance at all... One of the wonders happens in this picture en-route all five minutes could be need by this complete failed spectacle itself. This noticed seemingly the owner of the US-rights and cut 25 minutes out of this movie. So it takes more speed, but this act of castration makes this poor martial-arts-entertainment not better. Don't waste your time, there is no suspense, no atmosphere, no dramatic and no convincing action at all. I give ** out of ten stars.

As a child of ten years I have seen John Wayne's "The Alamo" for the first time. I was deeply impressed by the heroic story, and till this day as a man in the fifties, I still love this movie. Okay, I know now much more today about the real story when Texas fought for independence. For sure, the Duke's interpretation of Davy Crockett is sometimes more Cardinal Spellman as one of the king of the wild frontier. And sometimes the pathos of some scenes is intolerable. But the battle scenes are great, Richard Widmark did a fine job as Jim Bowie and the music composed by my favorite composer Dimitri Tiomkin is surpassing. In contrast to Wayne's epic John Lee Hancocks dark and melancholy picture don't want to narrate a fairy-tale for American patriots. This films tells the truth about the "13 days of glory", the historical background and the the motives and characters of the volunteers who fought in Alamo and at San Jacinto. I'm not a historian, but what I ever have read about Santa Anna, Sam Houston and all the circumstances down in Texas, from all films this one is very close to the authentic story. We see not heroes at all - what we see is an interesting, exciting, good casted, sensational photographed and well directed film about the things happened when the Lone Star State was born. I cannot understand the comments saying "The Alamo" is too long or boring or there are too much dialogs and too little action in it. Look for the admirable performance of Dennis Quaid and the outstanding Davy-Crockett-characterization of Billy Bob Thornton. "The Alamo" 1960) is a picture of the childhood, "The Alamo" (2004) one for the adulthood. Great movie, I give 8 out of 10 stars.

This picture shows Burt Lancaster was a much better actor than a director. After "The Kentuckian" he never tried directing again - a decision good for him and much better for the audience. The direction is lazy and slow-going, the script disappointing (I wonder that A.B. Guthrie, the writer of brilliant old-west-novels, didn't make a better job). The photography is good, the landscapes are great and few actors are fine, for example Walter Matthau as slimy bad guy. There are two special moments in the picture you surely will not forget: The bull-whip-fight between Matthau and Lancaster is exciting and the showdown, when Burt is running fast across the river while his enemy tries to load his rifle, is very different to other western-shootouts. This scenes will compensate viewers for foregoing boredom. I give five out of ten stars.