Beautiful, moving film.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

It won't let me post this anywhere sans mobile phone number so I'm posting it here...I love the music from this movie. The song that was sung in the brothel was called 'zai zai'. It's an ensemble song and the lead singer from the song is Yan Jixuan. Contributing are I believe Pan Shuai, Liu Aotian, Liu Shengtian and Feng Xu. Copyright belonging to Beijing Jingwen Record Co. The ending credits song is called 'eaten yet' and is sung by Wang Xiadou. Both through CMCB. Both arranged by Wang Yuanzhao.Sorry for posting this here in the review section, but it is a review of the music. For anyone who loved the music as much as I did and is seeking the ost, I hope this helps!

The Chinese movie industries have been hesitating at the puzzling crossroad of "Quo Vadis?" They really don't know how to choose the right direction of making decent movies, how to write irrational screenplays with logic story lines, how to transform a screenplay into a concrete decent film with believable characters who could connect with the consumers/viewers. There are lot of so-called new generation screenplay writers and directors with certain special connections with filthily rich people who desperately want to add another auspicious title as "movie producer" to their collections. Thus resulted in having such screenplay writers, director and producers of one of the most pathetic and messy Chinese movies in 21st century."Dao jiàn xiào(2010)" is such a movie that you could use it to test how tough your nerves could be, what kind of depth of your patience could reach and endure, what kind of logic reasoning ability you have, what kind of absorbing ability and flexibility to deal with ridiculousness and absurdity and, most of all, how you consider to waste 1hr32mins of your life on planet Earth is nothing but.What a mess, folks. Only the sound track, the choose of the music, would drive you crazy. The poor crafted dialog, the exaggeration and the pretentiousness of all the actors, the obvious self-indulgent but absolutely out of controlled directing....on and on and all summing up with just one conclusion: "Where is the logic and what's going on?" The only question after you rejected the DVD came up on your dizzy brain was: "How dare you call this a Movie!?" The screenplay(if there really had one) writer(s) and the director both have to be banned and banished from the Chinese movie industries permanently.NO STAR should waste on this mess.

Form over content film about what happens when the title characters all gain possession of a magical blade that was forged from several other legendary blades and their destinies are all intertwined.Your tolerance for this film will depend upon how you take form over content---and whether you can take a film that looks like an 30 second commercial expanded to 90 minutes. Its all clever images and rapid cutting.I lost patience very fast and had I not been watching this on DVD where fast forward is a possibility I would have walked out. Don't get me wrong it looks great, but outside of the look there didn't seem to be very much here.Your mileage will vary.

A hapless butcher (Liu Xiaoye) is in infatuated with a courtesan named Mei (Kitty Zhang Yuqi). Her charms are unworldly. In his way is the infamous fighter Big Beard. The butcher doesn't stand a chance. When he happens upon a stranger with a magical cleaver, he suddenly has the means to win. Before he uses it, he's told the magical blade isn't for killing and the blade's origin is explained. As the title suggests, the rest of the story involves a chef and a swordsman (Ashton Xu).Set in ancient china, this is a highly stylized version of the past. Director Wuershan hails from the commercial ad world and it's obvious. You can tell he makes ads featuring lots of slow motion, fast edits, bellowing fabric and soaring arias. The film is full of gimmicks. This includes, black and white sections with red highlights à la Sin City, animations, video game sequences, Taiwanese 3D news renderings and cartoons. Audio wise there are funky hip hop beats, techno tracks and a horrific Mandarin rap performed by the Bordello staff. Gimmicks or not, he knows how to compose a gorgeous visual. The images are great, the problem is the rapid fire delivery approach of it.The story unfolds like a Russian doll; stories are nestled within each other. It's not a bad concept except only one of the three stories is watchable. The other two stories suffer from too much whiz-bang effects that leaves no room for digestion. They're simply over wrought, over edited and over produced. When the story settles down, it's in the middle part featuring Ando Masanobu as the chef. It is by far the best story of the three and if the movie is judged on this part, it would be a very good one. Unfortunately it's surrounded by the frantic blur of the rest of the film.excerpt from www.cinemaliberated.com