Les 3 Royaumes - La Résurrection du Dragon

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.

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.

It seems as though it is only a half finished project. A first time joint venture- a major motion picture project put together by the Chinese and the Korean production teams, the Chinese took part in pre-production; from writing up the screen play to directing (a Chinese guy who made Jet Li's "Black Mask), acting & filming while the Korean team took care of most of the post production (& funding), the CGI, and scoring.

With almost unlimited amount of funding and the pool of world-class production talents in Asia, I cannot help but wonder how an opportunity like this could have gone this wrong. The famous Chinese classic- the three kingdoms - is an epic war story that one could not find its proper match in its scale in any part of the world. The movie deserved more than only a 90 min. duration. Why Why Why did the director and its team decide to cut out anything that resembled a real drama? Who knows. Jhon Woo wanted to give the project a proper attention, so in his upcoming three kingdoms project,'the red cliff' he is devoting 4 hours to tell the story.

The action sequences, camera works, set designs, costumes, and props, and even the score, you name it, they were all top notch. But Why? Why no Drama? Why could't the director decide to use another 30 more minutes to supplement the sheer absence of story-telling and the sufficient characterization of each of the major characters ? It would only have made the film 120 minutes, which is still within the main stream block buster length range. Besides I bet that anyone who came to see the movie must have expected something more of a... "brave heart" type of epic story and heart wrenching human drama and understood appreciatively even if the movie went more than 2 hours.

What a waste...indeed !!! I am a big fan of Three kingdoms and Any Lau, so i will always love any project that has anything to do with those 2 elements, but this one.... oh... a surprisingly disappointing project, indeed. I gave it a 5 out of ten, because as I mentioned, the picture is only a half-finished and at least that half was pretty good.

Based on the classical "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" Daniel Lee ventures back to one of the most important eras of Chinese history - the time of the titular Three Kingdoms, of ever-lasting conflict and battles, which formed many a legend. Here focus is directed to the famed and glorified general Zhao Zilong (an ever-pleasing Andy Lau), a supposedly undefeated warrior, who brought glory to the the kingdom of Liu Bei. Backed by the military genius of Zhuge Liang (Cunxin Pu) and the remaining Five Tiger Generals, the heroes bathed in glory.

Opulent, radiant the settings, scenery, cinematography, lighting and general art direction borders on perfection with each shot nurtured and tended too is this lavish epic. With appropriate heroic pathos to accompany the story-telling Zhao Zilong is presented as a chaste and immaculate warrior, as if almost striving towards a Buddhist transcendence. Unrivalled in battle, loved by all men and glorified even by contemporaries, Zhao shines even when riding out by himself against an entire army. Naturally such a directorial choice can't be criticised, similarly as chanson de geste type poems are what they are: glorified monuments of heroic deeds, unabashedly singing praise to the main protagonist. In a take it or leave it deal, Zhao Zilong is a hero, unfailing and relentless in pursuit of unification of the kingdoms, even in tragedy a man suit for tall tales of glory.

However "Three Kingdoms" falters due to one rather overbearing glitch: lack of middle story. The depiction of Zhao Zilong's life basically limits itself to an extravagant presentation of two moments of his story: the beginning and the end of his legend. Unfortunately Daniel Lee fails to even trouble himself with building any back-story to the character (who was he? where did he come from? what motivated him?) or worse yet fails to build any backbone to Zilong, instead fast-forwarding us from his initial feat of bravery as a young man, straight into the time of him being an elderly general, the sole remaining of the Five Tiger Generals, right before what was to be his final battle.

The whole context of in between is forfeited, thus never even truly affording the audience an understanding as to the prominence of his battle achievements or allowing him to build an emotional connection with viewers. Such a thinly presented story is however aptly summarised in the fading line of the movie itself "How many things before and after fade into gossip and laughter."

Three kingdom: Resurrection of the Dragon tells about the legend of one famous General Zhao Yun in the Three Kingdom. But unfortunately, there are many flaws in this movie.

First, this movie is a little bit off from the actual history. I never knew that Zhao Yun started his first career as a soldier directly under Liu Bei. He should been under a general name Gongsun Zan, before he changed his loyalty to Liu Bei. Then, there are Cao Ying and Luo Ping-An. Who the hell are they? Because as far as I know, the one who fought Zhao Yun in the last battle was Chao Zhen.

Secondly, for the actor. I personally think that Andy Lau is well-suited as General Zhao Yun here. But the actor for both General Guan Yu and Zhang-Fei is a little bit out of the course. While the actor who casted as Guan Yu seems too old, the actor's face who cast as Zhang Fei seems so childish. And the actor who played as Zhuge Liang looks like a traditional physician instead of a strategist. Generally, I would say, the casting is a minus here (except for Andy Lau, of course) For the story, it lacks explanation. There's no explanation for any act inside. No briefing before wars, no strategy meeting before wars, no nothing. It just give off the conclusion of what is happening right now, and lead us directly into the war. That's all. And that too, is a minus.

But still, I like the war in this. That's why I still give this movie a rating of 6, instead of 5.

Not good enough for all three kingdom fans. But if you're looking for just a war movies, than this is definitely for you.