Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

The movie "Kong Zi" reflects how the Confucianism was developed and consummated in ancient China by describing the whole life of Kong Zi. Based on the benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom and trust, Kong Zi created Confucianism in china. The Confucianism has reflected significant influences to every generation of Chinese people since it was created. From the perspective of Confucianism, it is practical in daily life. The key of Confucianism is to adjust people's behavior and mindset. Confucianism can set clear guide for ethics and courtesy to restrict people's behaviors and to make the society stable. One of the key ideas in Confucianism is courtesy. In the movie, Kong Zi reflected the importance of courtesy from his daily behaviors. For example, whenever Kong Zi went to visit the king of country Lu, Kong Zi completed the whole process of a standard courtesy of Confucianism: Thrice kneeling and nine times bowing. In front of the palace, Kong Zi needed to kneel down with three bows. After entered the palace, he kneeled down with three bows again. Finally, after he saw the king, he needed to repeat the process one more time. In total he needed to kneel down three times with none bows. This courtesy is a typical noble courtesy. Moreover, in the scene of taking dinner, the courtesy was also strict. All people needed to wash hand firstly. After that, they could not make any noise in the dinner. They should sit straight and chewed the dinner slowly. This courtesy for dinner is still applied in china today. At 19', Kong Zi was proposed a toast by his student. Kong Zi lifted his two hands to take the bowl from his student to show his respect. At 96', Kong Zi and his students shared the only one bowl of soup. This scene reflects the courtesy of giving precedence to other people. Another typical courtesy is to make an obeisance by cupping one hand in the other hand before own chest. Kong Zi applied this courtesy to show his respect to people before they had a chat. To show respect to people from different hierarchy, this kind of courtesy is reflected in different ways. The diversified courtesies to different people reflect that the strict hierarchy and courtesy take place at same time in Confucianism. For example, when Kong Zi was competing with Jisun in an archery game, Kong Zi proposed a toast to Jisun because of the requirements of courtesy and hierarchy. At 70', students kneeled down and bow to Kong Zi firstly. After that, Kong Zi also kneeled down and bowed to his students immediately. This scene also reflects that the courtesy and hierarchy are both important in Confucianism. Benevolence is one more important idea in Confucianism. In this movie, Kong Zi gave a clear expression to benevolence by overthrowing a bad tradition. Ancient Chinese got used to bury living people with dead people to show respect to the dead people. Kong Zi led a revolt to against this bad tradition. He insisted that every people should not take other people's life at will. Kong Zi had a well-known word about the benevolence "People who are actuated by Confucianism should realize the benevolence even sacrifice themselves." Moreover, in the scene at 108', Kong Zi taught his student Zi Lu that they should quit from the country because the government officers did not apply benevolence as a guide to manage the country anymore and the country became unstable. Kong Zi also exhibited the significance of persistence to people who practiced Confucianism in daily life. When he was restricted in the place between country Chen and country Cai, his students and him were tormented by hunger more than couple of days. However, Kong Zi asked his students that they should not gave up Confucianism for any reason. This idea is also known as "people should insist their faith and should not be bended for poor and power." The persistence is also reflected from people's loyalty to the king in the country. In the scene at 11'30'', Kong Zi did not cooperate with other people to replace the king of country Lu. Kong Zi believed that loyalty was a basic and critical requirement to people. Feudal code of ethics is another important idea proposed by Kong Zi in Confucianism. When Kong Zi was in country Wei, he taught the king that the leader of a country should apply feudal code of ethics to educate his people. This scene reflects that the education of feudal code of ethics is critical to stabilize a country from the perspective of Confucianism. Furthermore, when Kong Zi was spreading the ideas of Confucianism in country Song, the king and other people of country Song cut the tree that was applied by Kong Zi to shade the sunshine because people did not believe in the feudal code of ethics at the moment. They just wanted to drive Kong Zi and his students out. This scene reflects that the feudal code of ethics in country Song was extinct. At 108', Kong Zi's student-Zi Lu was dying. Zi Lu insisted to adjust his hat to a proper position before died. These scenes exhibits that the feudal codes of ethics are important to both of the country and individual people Confucianism. At the end of the movie, Kong Zi told his students before died: future people can understand me through this book; however, future people can also misunderstand me through this book. In my opinion, "future people" reflects all people who know or are getting to know the Confucianism. The "me" indicates all ideas in the Confucianism. The "book" exhibits people's diversified perceptions of the Confucianism. People who really understand the ideas in Confucianism can practice these ideas in daily life and gradual become as the people who can benefit other people and whole society. On the other hand, people who misunderstand the Confucianism believe that these ideas are only applied for the leaders to control the country and manage their people.

I love the Asian films and the epic sagas and so when I got ahold of this I watched it right away. I am disappointed in some aspects like story telling. For me instead of focusing on his entire life with much of it wandering they should of focused more on his dealings within LU. Much like IP MAN focused not on the entire story but on the war and IP MANs role during that time. THis film is beautiful to watch and some of the characters are fun but over all an un-inspiring tale of one of the most influential scholars of all time. The problem is the script, not the directing, performances or the photography. So if you plan on seeing this film be prepared to watch a rather long film with great photography, wonderful performances but fails in its lack of storytelling.

Confucius lived in violent times. He is shown reacting and taking moral stands, often putting himself at risk. And also suffering and losing, which makes it much more realistic. Probably it isn't accurate historically, but there is also not much solid detail about his life. (And no one can be sure if Lao Tzu even existed, never mind teaching Confucius, as is done here.) The man's sentiments have been somewhat modernized, but not unreasonably so. It does show what was positive about him, given the era he lived in.The film begins with Confucius as an old man, thinking back. Then we see him in his early 50s, being promoted from Major to Minister for Law in his home state of Lu. He is confronted with ethical issues after saving a slave-boy who was due to be buried alive with his former master who has just died. The story then takes many twists and turns and remains interesting.

I didn't watch this epic film for the longest time because of the low ratings and bad reviews about how boring, unexciting, etc. it is.I was also skeptical about Chow Yun Fat as Confucius, but it did work somehow, although I suspect there could have been better actors, though not as famous.However, after seeing Faye Wong's mv for the end song with the scenes form the film, it finally piqued my interest and was I glad I didn't miss this gem after all! It tries to stay close to the historic tales and records in describing Confucius' life, so it could come across as lacking in CGI action, but I think it helps rather than hurts the film.I MUCH prefer this epic to Red Cliff, the dialogue is much more intelligent and believable, and the acting is much better. It also dispenses with clichés that John Woo is fond of, with the exception of a couple of scenes.As it is a biopic, there isn't much of Confucius' teachings depicted, but more about political unrest and intrigues.Don't over analyze this - sit back and enjoy a great historic epic with beautifully created CGI scenes.It is much more enjoyable than what its solemn subject matter would suggest.