Xie bu ya zheng

The director want to say too much, but he don't want the audience to understand. There's too much drama on the roof and it doesn't make any sense. Some of the first passages are quite good, but the latter is pure self-liberation. Audience? It does not exist.

As usual, Jiang Wen served as the director, screenwriter, and actor of the film, but this time he seems to have lost focus. Occasionally, the aura is reminding the audience from time to time that the movie is relatively safe and relatively interesting. The lantern-style character rushed to show the world view to the audience, so Jiang Wen's quick editing with full tension turned into a rush in the film. Seeing the end, I feel that it is a sloppy ending in the sense of reason, and the sensibility feels "finally over."

We watched it and we just couldn't help shaking our heads and looked at each other with embarrassed sneers. At those moments when we traded our looks, the only thing floated over our subconsciousness was: "WTF?!" "What's going on?" "Is it necessary to ridicule themselves with such out-of-control pointless crap?" The whole movie just felt so boring, so pretentious, so exaggerated, so aimless, so twisted, so abnormal. When the absurdity went on and on, we just felt tired and decided not to watch, hanging on and forced ourselves to sit through to the end was just so inhumanly cruel. Yeah, there were people who always gave us some independent reviews with high ratings to show they were the designated few who were privileged and smart enough to understand what's going on in an absurd randomly patched-up junk, they can always get something out of nothing from a going nowhere, a dog jumping around and trying so hard to bite its own tail film. Well, lucky you, enjoy the tosh and have nice digestion.

I am not familiar with Jaing Wen's work and went in with no expectations. A Taiwanese friend passed me her ticket telling me that it's Chinese with Japanese historical and cultural references, and while that is not untrue, it's not what I would describe it. An indulgent description would call it a parody or self-parody, but I don't have the background and familiarity with his work to justify it.

I felt the first jolt to run out about 10 minutes in, and it's been a struggle to watch until the end. The story is convoluted and hard to follow, dialogue is fast and furious, and while I get it that the director may be going for parody, the net effect is cringe.

The hero is nonetheless played by an actor who is supposedly some kind of sex symbol, and he appears bare chested, which may be redemptive for some audiences; it might also spark a parkour renaissance in China (or at least boost the sales of Assassin's Creed).

Director and writer spend a lot of effort to this movie. U have to understand China history to understand easter egg in this movie. It's make no sense in many way but very strange that u start to accept by its unique way with beautiful sound track of telling stories to u. U have to watch a few times to discover the hidden message in this movie and u can go to school become history teacher.