Synopsis: The emporer (Chow Yun-Fat) is a son of a bitch but he's one strong smart ass son of a bitch at that. He has made his way all the way to the top and has stopped at nothing in his way. But that's not what this movie is about. This movie is about revenge and oh man revenge is bittersweet indeed. This story follows his empress at the time, Gong Li, as she has been driven mad by her husband for years. But she's not putting up with any more crap no mame! She plots a scheme of revenge so great that it will throw the entire kingdom into turmoil. But like I said before, the emporer is a badass but he's smart, and his three sons are loyal. The stage is set as the shadow war commences between the emporer, empress, and everyone caught in between. Attacks are made in the dark, behind curtains, and the least of which, with a weapon you can touch. It's all about lies and deceit, trust and betrayl. The ultimate show down between, tradition, duty, love and hate.Should You Watch It: The answer is yes. The movie might be confusing and there are so many holes in the storyline that you just pretty much give up half way. But what this movie does well and it does extremely well is recreating the lush settings of the Tang dynasty. The first scene of the movie hits you hard with brilliant colour combined with exuberant flare, not only in costume design but in the overall mannerisms of most trivial extras. This is characteristic of the director Zhang Yi-Mou. Just one look at this movie and you will see that he has not changed his style from when he directed Hero and House of Flying Daggers. This movie should have won the academy award for best achievement in costume but whatever. This movie makes everything else in the world look bland and mundane in comparison.
Things to Watch Out For: Not going to bore you with the theme of it all this time around because in this movie, it's not about the storyline or the theme. The storyline becomes predictable and trivial by the 30 minute mark because you just loose yourself in the film's setting and action. The major things to watch for in this movie is which version you get. It's important to choose the right one, and the traditional mandarin version might not be the default one right away. Sure the original is best, but unless you're hardcore mainland you probably won't understand most of the dialogue unless you're lucky enough to find it with subtitles. And that would be the best. But if you're like me, whose Chinese isn't very good, then perhaps the dubbed version is the better way to go. The voice acting is very well done, and although it will never sound the same, it does the job well enough for this kind of movie where dialogue isn't important.
Things You Don't Expect: This movie had a lot of positives and it was very well done but the only thing I really had a problem with was the acting. OMG I couldn't believe the amount of overacting especially by the veteren actors. I was shocked! It's a common style for these era pieces to be acted a certain way set by Chinese cinema, but this movie just had a western feel to it from the beginning and the Chinese style acting felt extremely out of place. Furthermore, the music selection was a very suspect one as well. They decided to go with a post-romantic European style which emphasis strong chorus like sounds which resonates through out the movie. This deviates from the traditional Chinese feel resulting in a unnatural product. Those things are minor and it does give the movie a more serious tone which is something the director was going for. I'm just not certain this was the right way to go about it.
Final Score: 6.8
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