Well Deserved Praise

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

During China's Ming Dynasty his eunuchs have assumed considerable power with one running the East and West Bureaus which act as spies and the nations strict police; they also don't want the emperor to know that they are corrupt. During an operation to crack down on those who would expose them the head of the East Bureau is killed by Zhao Huai'an. Meanwhile the emperor's chief concubine has had the West Bureau execute three courtesans who got pregnant and ordered them to hunt down a fourth. This fourth one is about to be killed but is rescued by somebody claiming to be Zhao Huai'an; this is witnessed by the real Zhao. The fake Zhao and the courtesan head to the Dragon Gate in where they hope to wait out an approaching sandstorm. There are many others there drawn by a legend which says that a city, with lots of treasure, will be uncovered during such a sandstorm. By the time the storm arrives the West Bureau has arrived, there is also a man who looks almost identical to its leader; a group of Mongols and various bandits… conflict is inevitable and when it comes things get confusing at times.As this film got underway I quickly prepared to be disappointed as the opening scene featured some very obvious CGI… thankfully after that things improved somewhat and the effects towards the end where much better. The story was a little confusing at times with a large cast of characters, some of whom look identical… ultimately this doesn't matter too much as we can tell who the main characters are except when there is deliberate confusion. There is plenty of solid action which fans of Wuxia style fighting are likely to enjoy. The cast, which includes Jet Li, does a fine job. Overall this isn't a classic of the genre but it is still well worth watching.These comments are based on watching the film in Mandarin with English subtitles; an English dub is also available but I can't comment on its quality.

Sorry but I was very disappointed with this movie. I do like Jet Li and I think he is an excellent Martial Artist, but you wouldn't know it from this film. Set three years after Dragon Inn, the innkeeper Jade has disappeared and a new inn has risen from the ashes but occupied by marauders, who hope to find lost city and treasure buried in the desert somewhere.The way the film was directed made it overly confusing to follow and as others have said the film relies much to much on CGI. The fight sequences were over long and at times ridiculous. I know some Chinese films over use wire work and CGI but this one took it even further to show the characters flying through the air having and having amazing powers so that a flick of the hand could cause inanimate objects to do whatever they wanted. Yes despite these amazing powers they were in the end killed by relatively simple means. The sword fights were also ridiculous with a never ending stream of knives appearing from nowhere.This is NOT a Martial Arts film but rather a fantasy more like watching a Video game than a movie.It is a shame because there were some good actors in this film, but the director seems to have let things go to his head and lost the plot.This is one DVD for the bargain basket I am afraid.

Following Dragon Inn this film takes visual effects so freaking far that they overshadow and ruin the majority of all fights scenes in the movie. I love movies like House of Flying Daggers, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and classics like Enter the Dragon. This has none of the redeeming qualities of those movies. I watched this mainly because of Jet Li's presence in the cast, and sadly that didn't help. His fights are also injected with too much CGI, and over done wire effects. I would have hoped he would pick a better film to make his return into wushu epics. I will go watch Hero or Fearless now to wipe my mind of this general bs. Overall 5/10 and I will, sad to say, not be buying this on bluray or DVD. What a disappointment.

The Flying Swords of Dragon Inn expands upon the mythos created in the earlier two films, and throws in a lot more formidable characters as well as their respective selfish objectives and missions, starting with the lead character of Zhou Huai'an (Jet Li), a vigilante in the Ming Dynasty responsible for a spate of killings of corrupt court officials. With the King forming the East and West Bureaus in the same fashion as the FBI and CIA respectively, an incredible set action piece that serves as a prologue has Zhou dispatching the head of the East Bureau in a special appearance by the legendary Gordon Liu, to make the case of how powerful Zhou is with his lightning quick reflexes and special moves that we don't see much of, and gets that special effects boost as well.You see, Zhou disappears for about more than half the movie, which is a pity since Jet Li's star billing is used everywhere. Like a wandering swordsman who pops up every now and then to help the poor and the weak, the damsel in distress here is a palace handmaiden (Mavis Fan) who is on the run for carrying what would be the Dragon baby, impregnated by a naturally lecherous Emperor whose concubine sets the entire plot in motion for wanting any female with the possibility of producing a bloodline to the throne terminated. With Yu Hua Tian (Chen Kun), the head of the West Bureau her pillow partner, the game is afoot when the handmaiden gets rescued by Ling Lanqiu (Zhou Xun), the female equivalent of Zhou Huai'an whose brooding demeanour hints at a past romantic liaison with Zhou, and who harbours some secrets of the infamous Dragon Inn which is now populated by rag tag characters, There are subplots galore in the film, whose screenplay is also written by Tsui Hark, that will call for your utmost attention in order to keep pace and make sense of it all, some properly developed while others relying on your past knowledge of the Dragon Inn mythos as foundation in which this retelling is based on, allowing you to connect the dots why certain events are done the way they are now. For instance, in Hu's original film, there are bloodlines on the run which get congregated at Dragon Inn, and this one loosely follows that rationale. And for once, we know why various groups descend upon this inn in the middle of nowhere, if not for the very ordinary reason of having treasure buried somewhere in the midst of the vast wasteland, and to hunt for it meant to exploit the tunnels beneath the inn, make sense of some inscribed couplets, and depending on 1 in 60 years (not 1 in 50 years ponding in Singapore mind you) geographic events to allow all the cards to fall into place.However, like all great martial arts epic, the fun always lies with the villains, and Flying Swords boasts a memorable number of them. Chen Kun's Yu Hua Tian has in possession the title Flying Swords that brings back the hey days where gimmicky weapons are the order of the day in swordfighting films, and is himself an adversary who knows no mercy. His double role here makes this almost like a Chen Kun starrer, and a well deserved one for the performance put in as characters on either side of the fence. His cronies too are as bad as bad can be, and are exponents in their own right, with Fan Siu Wong as the masked Ma Jing Liang, and the Western Bureau second in command Tan Lu Zi (Sheng Jian) who unfortunately gets outfoxed most of the time.As a martial arts film, Flying Swords of Dragon Gate has enough variance in its fighting stances and styles, and to exploit 3D, naturally has stocked up on its flying dagger numbers to provide for those throw-toward-the-screen moments. It's quite hit and miss here, as some effects were wondrously too rich and too artificial that takes you out of the movie and may look more in place in a science fiction film instead, while others are done just right to blend in with the period surroundings. With a number of Chinese films these days just slapping on special effects like it was butter on bread (Culprits being films like Legendary Amazons, The Sorcerer and White Snake which also starred Jet Li, and just about every period flick coming out in the last year or two), this one may have to convince those who are turned off by the earlier shoddy productions. Tsui Hark continues to reinvent himself with each technological leap, with his Zu Warriors of the Magic Mountain (1983, not the 2001 monstrosity), the Once Upon a Time in China series, and now with Detective Dee leading the charge and sealing the deal for his comeback, Flying Swords may just be that magic ticket Tsui Hark needs to re-establish himself as one of the greats in Asian cinema after a woeful past decade. It may not be an instant classic, but Flying Swords does have the necessary ingredients to make it amongst the game changing tent- poles of the genre.