San guo zhi jian long xie jia

Another Chinese epic film filled with heroes, enormous battle scenes, amazing panoramas and some great actors. Sounds cool and like a sure winner yet its an enormous waste of money and talent.

The battle scenes are a big disappointment. It would be fine if the writers/director/producers created a film that was small on battle scenes big on character development, plot development and dialog. Yet, the battle scenes are the majority of the film and there is no character development, very limited plot development and the dialog is boring and thankfully there's not much of it.

The battle scenes are filled with short cuts which are extremely hard to follow. One cut will have mounted units charging from left to right on the screen and then the next cut will show mounted units charging from right to left. Logically the viewer is led to believe that there are two opposing mounted units charging each other. A few cuts later it becomes apparent that all the mounted units are on the same side and chasing one guy.

The film spends 30-45 minutes on two battle sequences featuring a young Zilong, then 5-7 minutes on an elaborate ceremony featuring a middle aged Zilong and the rest of the film time is spent on the old Zilong.

The cinematography is typical of recent Chinese epics overly beautiful (death never looked so pretty) and big on ceremony. The problem is that it was chopped up like almond-fried chicken. The cinematography could have been the saving grace of this film however it was edited by someone on crack. The result is that it is beautifully confusing.

If you are looking for another great or at least entertaining Chinese epic film look elsewhere. There really is no reason to watch this film unless you are curious to the point of being masochistic as I often am.

I like eastern movies, that are build around dynasties and wars and such. Even a lesser effort like this can be entertaining for me. I've said it before though, since I've watched MUSA, no other movie has come close to that! It's difficult to make another one, that would be in the same vein. While this one couldn't hold up to that, it's not able to hold up to other movies too (even from recent future, like THE WARLORDS, with Jet Li and Andy Lau).

All in all, this is quite nice, the action is decent, the story moves along with a good pace and it's quite enjoyable overall. If you will like it or not, depends on your view of movies in that genre/vein. Just don't expect anything great and you won't be disappointed!

Well, This is the first time that I came here. Actually, it is because of this movie made me come here! Because he is a Korean Director, I can bear and forgive his unknowns about the real and reasonable history of Three Kingdoms of Ancient China. But there is something I can't bear, and I am sure nobody had known Ancient China can bear.

The costumes(or Amor), I am sure they are all Japannese Style! I am not want to cause any racism arguments, but it is Chinese History, what's hell you give the worries Japannese Amors? Can I shoot a movie about Civil War of US but give them Ancient European Amors? And also there are many many unreasonable details about the story. Our Forums have discussed how bad and how stupid about this story~~~~Well, I know most of u guys can't understand what I am saying. Overall, it is not a good story, but it may be a good WAR FILM which made people excited.

The top review I see on here asks why this movie isn't getting higher ratings. I counter: why should it? What should be a masterful story is ruined by absolutely poor directing. This movie seeks to do such much in a short amount of time. If this movie were another hour long, maybe they could've squeezed everything in. Instead, you have back stories that don't get fleshed out, people who become major characters out of nowhere and then suddenly its supposed to be emotional when they get killed, and decades of time passing with barely any filler of what happened in that time. And what is up with the ending? There is no catharsis, there is no meaning behind any of the actions that occur, there is just superfluous and emptiness. And why even throw in that hint of a love story? Nothing ever gets spoken of it again. Everything that occurs is just pointless.

If you are looking for a Chinese war movie simply to pass some time, this is watchable. Beyond that, there are many other movies in that genre that are more enjoyable and well crafted.

To be brief, this movie was a disappointment.

The reasons are simple - it lacks any characterization, the whole story feels like a synopsis, not a full story. Scenes and images flashed by as if we are scanning (selected) pages of a novel, with no real details given.

I thought Andy Lau was good for the role and I didn't even mind Maggie Q's role; the samurai-like armor; the Wei forces' helmets resembling Stahlhelms (Nazi helmets) and the Shu's are like British soldiers being so obvious. These are cosmetic and artistic choices and didn't pose as a serious distraction. (The brief appearances of some other main ROTK characters were done just right and did provide a nice glimpse into what might have been part of a more romantic epic.) But still, give more meat to the story and characters, make it a real movie, not a hundred minutes long trailer.