Thanks for the memories!

Expected more

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Based on the classical "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" Daniel Lee ventures back to one of the most important eras of Chinese history - the time of the titular Three Kingdoms, of ever-lasting conflict and battles, which formed many a legend. Here focus is directed to the famed and glorified general Zhao Zilong (an ever-pleasing Andy Lau), a supposedly undefeated warrior, who brought glory to the the kingdom of Liu Bei. Backed by the military genius of Zhuge Liang (Cunxin Pu) and the remaining Five Tiger Generals, the heroes bathed in glory.Opulent, radiant the settings, scenery, cinematography, lighting and general art direction borders on perfection with each shot nurtured and tended too is this lavish epic. With appropriate heroic pathos to accompany the story-telling Zhao Zilong is presented as a chaste and immaculate warrior, as if almost striving towards a Buddhist transcendence. Unrivalled in battle, loved by all men and glorified even by contemporaries, Zhao shines even when riding out by himself against an entire army. Naturally such a directorial choice can't be criticised, similarly as chanson de geste type poems are what they are: glorified monuments of heroic deeds, unabashedly singing praise to the main protagonist. In a take it or leave it deal, Zhao Zilong is a hero, unfailing and relentless in pursuit of unification of the kingdoms, even in tragedy a man suit for tall tales of glory.However "Three Kingdoms" falters due to one rather overbearing glitch: lack of middle story. The depiction of Zhao Zilong's life basically limits itself to an extravagant presentation of two moments of his story: the beginning and the end of his legend. Unfortunately Daniel Lee fails to even trouble himself with building any back-story to the character (who was he? where did he come from? what motivated him?) or worse yet fails to build any backbone to Zilong, instead fast-forwarding us from his initial feat of bravery as a young man, straight into the time of him being an elderly general, the sole remaining of the Five Tiger Generals, right before what was to be his final battle.The whole context of in between is forfeited, thus never even truly affording the audience an understanding as to the prominence of his battle achievements or allowing him to build an emotional connection with viewers. Such a thinly presented story is however aptly summarised in the fading line of the movie itself "How many things before and after fade into gossip and laughter."

Three kingdoms is a great Chinese masterpiece that is set in the era of the three kingdoms that ruled china. The cao, wu and liu dynasties were trying to unite china each under their own leadership and in a result it produces wars between the three houses for decades. The story in this movie is told from the Liu's point of view and my god what a story that is.I don't know really why people are not giving this high ratings, it should be on the IMDb top 100. I guess most people that watch Chinese movies are in it because of the martial arts and people flying prospective. If you are looking for something like that then go watch house of the flying daggers or The Forbidden Kingdom because this movie is not about massive FX's and stunts. It simply tells a story with some battles shoved in. The movie is quite emotional and the acting was superb. As for the directing it truly is brilliant, the battles were directed with passion and ingeniousness with great sound effects and slowmo shots that makes it even more desirable to watch over and over again.This is one movie that shouldn't be missed by Chinese history/mythology fans. Its a 10/10 and I don't care what other people might think, its just a masterpiece.

Well, it is actually a nice movie. Some good fighting scenes and nice music.BUT, it is only a nice movie, if you don't know anything about the actual novel or history this movie should be based on. For people who know the novel or history, you can say the movie is just painful to watch, at least for me. You ask why? Let me give you an comparison: Since it should be based on a novel, let's take LotR. So, you know the story of LotR, you read the novel and you just love it. Now they make a movie out of it and it will be like that: Legolas is the main character(which is fine, since we all like him). And it is about his life, how he should be a great, undefeated warrior(oh, and he is wearing a Roman armor). He started as a pawn under King Aragorn and worked all his way up and during that he hat an fight with Boromir and Theoden. And at the end he fought against the granddaughter of Sauron(you think: what the heck? I have the same thought, when I watched this movie), who is leading Sauron's army(when she was young, Sauron took her to battles with him) and ended up loosing to her and dies. Ah, by the way. Gandalf looks like a beggar and fortune teller. So you see my problem with the movie? It doesn't really have anything to do with the novel. It just borrowed the names and some events.So, if you don't know the novel or the story of the Three Kingdom, go ahead and watch it. It's pretty amusing. But if you DO know the story and want a movie which fits to it. Don't watch it!!! It will destroy your image of the heroes in the novel. Wait for the Red Cliff movie this summer =DSo it is only my opinion. Thanks for reading it.

It seems as though it is only a half finished project. A first time joint venture- a major motion picture project put together by the Chinese and the Korean production teams, the Chinese took part in pre-production; from writing up the screen play to directing (a Chinese guy who made Jet Li's "Black Mask), acting & filming while the Korean team took care of most of the post production (& funding), the CGI, and scoring.With almost unlimited amount of funding and the pool of world-class production talents in Asia, I cannot help but wonder how an opportunity like this could have gone this wrong. The famous Chinese classic- the three kingdoms - is an epic war story that one could not find its proper match in its scale in any part of the world. The movie deserved more than only a 90 min. duration. Why Why Why did the director and its team decide to cut out anything that resembled a real drama? Who knows. Jhon Woo wanted to give the project a proper attention, so in his upcoming three kingdoms project,'the red cliff' he is devoting 4 hours to tell the story.The action sequences, camera works, set designs, costumes, and props, and even the score, you name it, they were all top notch. But Why? Why no Drama? Why could't the director decide to use another 30 more minutes to supplement the sheer absence of story-telling and the sufficient characterization of each of the major characters ? It would only have made the film 120 minutes, which is still within the main stream block buster length range. Besides I bet that anyone who came to see the movie must have expected something more of a... "brave heart" type of epic story and heart wrenching human drama and understood appreciatively even if the movie went more than 2 hours.What a waste...indeed !!! I am a big fan of Three kingdoms and Any Lau, so i will always love any project that has anything to do with those 2 elements, but this one.... oh... a surprisingly disappointing project, indeed. I gave it a 5 out of ten, because as I mentioned, the picture is only a half-finished and at least that half was pretty good.