Zhi qu wei hu shan

The best scene for me is the tiger attack, matches by the skills of Zhang. I rewatch it a few times, and begin to notice some 'unlikelihoods'. Even if the camara shots are breathtaking, the riffle of Zhang is a mechanism action, so you have to reload after each shot even if the chamber contains 5 cartridges (like a Muser use in WW2). During the tiger last jump, Zhang load a cartridge but fire 4 bullets, without using the action 'mechanism' ...like an automatic riffle. Zhang can go up and down the tree like an acrobat, sometimes, without even using his legs, but the tiger in unable to climb with his powerful claws. The size of the dead tiger lying on Zhang is quite exagerated... But this is OK from a cinematographic marketing. For the rest of the movie, it will be a lot greater if you keep it simple Mr Director, I mean without the theatricals and too much makeup :)

I am not a fan of these oriental action films, it is hard to like an action film, when the script is not very interesting, it complicates a little more, totally discouraging ... Unfortunately, I didn't win ...

Very interesting action adventure with some impressive camera work. The action sequences are amazing and the film is totally unpredictable. The tiger scene was incredible! I loved the film, effects, story and music. Very well done.

Tsui Hark movies are always a mixed bag for me. The Vietnamese New Wave director created visually stunning, profoundly philosophical and mostly historically inspired movies like the ''A Chinese Ghost Story'' and ''Once Upon a Time in China'' movie series in his early years that any movie fan should know. In recent years, he rather focused on commercially entertaining, effect-ridden and overall meaningless films such as ''Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame'' and ''The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate''. The latter movies weren't entirely bad but they weren't on the same artistic, authentic and intellectual level as his early classics. ''The Taking of Tiger Mountain'' is situated somewhere in between both categories but probably closer to the second group than to the first.

On the positive side, the movie is partially historically inspired even though the film isn't devoid of a certain propagandistic approach that presents the People's Liberation Army in a much too positive way. The movie basically tells the story of a small group within this army that needs to outsmart a large group of bandits that are raiding villages in the northern parts of the fragile country. The settings of the movie are truly spectacular. The costumes, the villages and even the way the actors speak are truly accurate and trace your way back seventy years in time. Most of the story is set in elegant winter landscapes and one gets to see breathtaking valleys and mountains, simple but charming skiing exercises and even a couple of animals such as the tiger that attacks the protagonist halfway through the movie. In comparison with Tsui Hark's other recent movies, especially the first half of the film feels refreshingly authentic, natural and realistic and only a few effects are used in an efficient way. Towards the climax of the story, more and more special effects are used but they somehow add to the action and tension of the film and don't feel randomly inserted as in many of his other recent films. The action choreographies are stunning and the best example for these intense passages is the battle in the raided village which takes place towards the last third of the movie. While the acting itself is not outstanding, it definitely has more depth than characters in Tsui Hark's more recent films and one can feel some empathy with the smart and mysterious protagonist, the emotional and lonely child or the optimistic female combat medic.

On the negative side, the main villain remains superficial and even ridiculous at certain moments. The short moments of humour when he speaks nonsense or exaggeration when he gestures in theatrical manner feel out of place and unnecessarily decrease the intensity of the movie. The special effects get a little bit exaggerated in the final twenty minutes or so of the movie and contrast the initially authentic magic of the movie that turns into something which isn't a far call from a meaningless Hollywood action flick. The story itself is also a little bit too simple, predictable and one-sided. Another element which I disliked is how the movie was forcedly connected to some random Chinese emigrant living in New York City who can't let go of his culture, family and past instead of trying to become accurately integrated in a foreign country. I feel that this connection to our contemporary world didn't add anything at all to the movie even if the director probably intended to prove that the value of this story based on Qu Bo's novel of the same name from 1957 has been firmly planted in the Chinese national consciousness for more than half a century.

In the end, the numerous positive elements are much more impressive and present than the few negative facts which can be seen as secondary. Tsui Hark somewhat redeems himself after a series of rather shallow flicks that were only aiming for commercial success, modern special effects and simple entertainment. This movie has more depth concerning the characters, magic settings and at least some kind of moral at certain points in the story. This movie still isn't on the same level as Tsui Hark's earliest successes but fans of historically inspired contemporary Chinese action movies can't go wrong with this movie and should therefore give this film a chance.

The Taking of Tiger Mountain is an epic action movie directed by Tsui Hark and stars Zhang Hanyu, Lin Gengxin, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Yu Nan and Tong Liya.

I haven't read or heard about the incident on which the movie is made so i'll not get into the debate of how close the movie is to reality but will only review on the basis of watching a movie.

The movie is a decently entertaining movie and the movie has it's flaws as well as it's strength and overall the movie is good one time watch movie.

The acting in the movie is good and Zhang Hanyu had done a tremendous job and is the most shining among them all, Lin Gengxin was impressive, Tony Leung Ka-fai had a strong role of The Hawk and was effective. Rest of the support staff were either superb or decent.

Screenplay of the movie is fairly decent but the continuity pace is missing from the movie and sometimes the movie looks slow however it will not loose the grip from the viewers, the length of the movie could've been trimmed a little to make the movie more gripping. The movie is said to be a war movie but war scenes are very limited.

The fighting scenes of the movie is good but doesn't looks convincing and looked unnatural, the climax of the movie seems to be shot in a hurry as i was expecting some decent war but the movie ends quickly.

Some of the scenes were shot beautifully such as the fight with the tiger. Overall the movie is decently entertaining, the war movie lovers might be disappointed with limited war scenes, The movie is a decently one time watch movie.