Yang jia jiang

This is a feature film version of the Yang army story which is one of the legendary stories passed down from generation to generation amongst the Chinese population. The fact is, the film will not raise any kind of excitement or appreciation for anyone else other than Chinese people. For example, many reviewers do not even know that there are multiple versions of this story portrayed in multiple TV series. "So what?", they ask... well because you have something to compare to and once again, I stress that its all down to appreciation of the history of the story which most critics will have lacked.

It is true that there are similarities to 300 and Troy but this is executed with style. In fact, I would use the word "Style" to describe this remake. It has a stylish look and feel to it which saved what could have been disaster. The cast features a few big names who struggle to exert their screen presence due to the vast number of prominent characters. To my surprise none of the actors and actresses impressed me with their performances, which I found merely adequate. Instead, I was more impressed by the sets and choreography as well as the movie score. The cast features two big names, Ekin Cheng and Raymond Lam, who I had expected to shine. Instead they are allowed to fall back on their wooden acting (both are guilty of this acting style) which left the rest to veteran HK actor, Adam Cheng. Unfortunately Adam Cheng tends to excel in roles that are less serious, and I felt that someone with more physical presence was needed for the role of the General.

But still, I gave this film 10/10 purely in an effort to balance up the poor ratings given by the clueless. I was half expecting someone to confuse this film with "Saving Private Ryan". I never thought anyone would own up to it....

Saving General Yang is an excellent Chinese period war movie in the same vein as Red Cliff and Warlords. Of course, the three of these films differ greatly. SGY takes place in Northeast China, early Song dynasty where the righteous General Yang is trapped behind enemy lines and his seven sons rush to the battlefield to rescue him. Directed by Ronny Yu, who directed some of my favorite Chinese language movies such as Fearless and The Bride With White Hair. As usual for Ronny Yu, SGY is real sharp looking with exceptional camera-work. Yu did well with this period epic with top notch cinematography, great action, nice sets/costumes, good storytelling and solid performances from the cast. As this is a war movie, I felt the film needed more blood. Even so, that is a minor complaint as SGY is a very solid and well made movie.

I do have a soft spot for Eastern in general (no pun intended) and this was able to fill that. Now the story is simple (though I won't go into it and let you explore it yourself or read about it in the summary tag here on IMDb), but it is the action scenes and the drama that involves the family and obviously the tradition that surrounds it all.

If you are like me, there is no question you will like this (maybe even rate it higher than me), but this is not art-house (even though some themes might qualify as such by themselves), this is an action movie. So if that is what you are looking for you could do a lot worse than this. Nice fighting, good choreography and a story that is easy to follow.

Firstly, at the time of writing this movie has only got 5.5/10 which seems kinda crazy to me, so don't be put off by the low rating.

Firstly this film took me completely by surprise. General Yang has seven sons who have to save him (I won't say any more - no spoilers). What amazed me is how the director has managed to give each of them depth and character. Rather than simply seeing them as seven brothers you get to know each one individually, both the good and bad of each character.

Secondly, I can't remember the last time a movie of this kind literally moved me to tears, but this one got me! It's the scene where they are next to an old grave of a past warrior. You will understand why when you watch that scene.

Watch this movie, I promise you won't be disappointed!

I have watched this movie just out of curiosity to find out if there was any "connection" with "Saving Private Ryan" and to some extent there was. The plot is quite obvious with a resemblance of old fairy tales about seven warriors. There are all movie elements you expect to see in recent Chinese movies like love, brotherhood, master and student relations, political intrigues, wisdom, betrayal, revenge, etc. Everything is the way it should be, the good guys remain good ones till they die and bad guys are either punished or learn their lesson. As a person who has been watching martial art movies for many years, I could appreciate the quality of fighting scenes choreography. I can hardly imagine how warriors of the past could fight for hours using their weapons when one gets tired after fencing for just an hour. Of course there are special effects, but most of the stunts are done with minimal "wire use" that has been heavily exploited by Jet Li in his last movies. I cannot say this is one of the best martial art movies, but I did not have a feeling of wasted time after watching it. The main thing that kept me watching this movie till the end was a prophesy written by a wise master. Intrigued? Then watch it yourself.