2.5/5 stars
A big-budget movie adaptation of a popular Japanese video game series, itself based on a classical Chinese novel which freely dramatised history, Dynasty Warriors was, by its conception, always at risk of losing its way in a hodgepodge of ideas and influences. And so it proves with this bizarrely paced and only intermittently diverting movie by Hong Kong director Roy Chow Hin-yeung (Knockout).
Make no mistake: it is a high-wire act for any filmmaker looking to blend the fantastical action in the hack-and-slash fighting game Dynasty Warriors – in which a swing of the magical sword could send hundreds of enemy soldiers flying, as if you’ve just detonated an invisible bomb – with the realistic character construction and intricate plotting in Luo Guanzhong’s epic novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
The cartoonish violence from the game turns out to be mere seasoning in this surprisingly story-driven movie, which begins with arguably its best battle scene, as future warlord and perennial good guy Liu Bei (Tony Yang Yo-ning) and his two blood brothers, Guan Yu (Han Geng) and Zhang Fei (Justin Cheung Kin-seng), help Han official Dong Zhuo (Lam Suet) suppress the Yellow Turban Rebellion.
Dong then installs himself as Han’s de facto ruler (and the film’s pantomime villain), and is joined by the formidable general Lu Bu (Louis Koo Tin-lok). Meanwhile, Liu meets up with a coalition of feudal lords – including future rival Cao Cao (Wang Kai) – looking to counter Dong, and comes to command his own army. The movie, clearly with a (by now highly unlikely) sequel in mind, climaxes with Lu’s aborted fight with Liu and co.
Admirably, Chow’s film – again scripted by his wife Christine To Chi-long – turns out to be less a mindless special effects extravaganza based solely around the silly game than it is an ambitious recap of early sections of Luo’s tome, offering an abridged take on key events leading up to the fall of the Han dynasty – often against the sweeping vistas of New Zealand, where the movie was partly shot.
It is unfortunate, however, that his serious effort is undermined by questionable casting decisions, as well as the story’s frequent lapses into inadvertent comedy – while Lam hams it up as Dong Zhuo, Koo mistakes subtle face twitching for villainy, and Han fails to even look the part as the legendary general Guan Yu.
As it is, the perfect audience for Dynasty Warriors might be someone who’s already familiar with, and passionate about, the novel, and doesn’t mind having a laugh – intended or otherwise – with the material.
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