English title: An Empress and the Warriors
Rating: PG (Some battle scenes)
Running time: 95 minutes
Opens: 27 March 2008, Now Showing
Some info:
1) IMDB profile
2) Official Site (Can choose between Simp/Trad Chinese and English)
Actually was a little curious how Kelly Chan will act in a show like this. For Donnie Yen, the action/stunts part probably won’t be much of a problem for him since he’s used to movies like this, though the armour may be a little heavy.
Sadly, there’s no wiki article (at least not in English) available, so you can’t really see a summary of the storyline. Haha. Anyway, Donnie plays Kelly’s right-hand general after her father (the king) died. Kelly is a princess (of 燕), while Leon is Kelly’s love interest in the end, and is the sole survivor from a group of skilled yet warmonging group of people exterminated by the alliance of 10 kingdoms some years back. The main highlights of the show would be the various trials Kelly has to face in leading/saving her kingdom, and also the love interest problem between the 3 of them, which turns out to be not of a triangle later in the movie. If I write more details, I might as well just go open a wiki article liaoz. Either u find other sources to find out more, or go watch the movie if u’re that interested. =D
Some parts of the show, imo, were quite badly directed leh, or maybe it’s just the camera angle or something. And I got this weird feeling seeing Leon and Kelly trying to appear lovey-dovey with each other. I don’t know why. Hahaha, maybe their chemistry not really there, or maybe they don’t exude enough of the feelings needed for things like these.
Oh, [spoiler] the ending is that both Donnie and Leon died, leaving Kelly alone, setting a rule that 燕 will not start a war again, and be at peace with the other 9 kingdoms[/spoilers]. Too lazy to type more, shall just throw in some of my observations below.
Some observations (a bit long. paiseh):
1) When Kelly and Leon got stung by the bees and required bandaging, in a few scenes, Kelly’s bandage across from her face switches side, clearly showing the audience how the sequence was filmed. It looked rather glaring and obvious, and I wonder why wouldn’t she have realised the bandage has been put across a different side of her face. Hic
2) The theme song has been played many times, in various arrangements including the vocal version. It’s actually quite nice, but kinda irritating to me with the many, many version. =P
3) Interestingly, a few characters were named somewhat to Louis Cha’s story. 慕容 and 段 as surnames don’t happen to be very common surnames do they? And they happen to cross paths, and both liking the same gal. And the story relates to 大燕国. Hohum. Maybe it’s really a coincidence. =P Even clarence thought it had some kind of relation. Ahahaha
4) As usual, lethal poison chooses how long it lets the victim live after being poisoned. Leon lasted way, way much more than the creator of the poison. Though Leon is a young chap and the creator is a old man, the disparity is rather huge, and the latter is actually quite skilled in making poisons so I would expect that old fogey to have more “resistance” than Leon who is just part of a clan that’s very skilled in martial arts and other stuff.
5) Donnie Yen must have a fight scene that shows off his 身手. At least that’s what I’ve noticed of the recent movies I’ve watched which stars him as one of the lead characters. Haha.
6) Leon’s hot air balloon doesn’t seem like he’ll have control over how the fire burns. Anyway, the english subtitles for the 天灯 turns out to be Zhuge Lantern. While it’s not wrong to say Zhuge used such a thing, but I believe, judging from the storyline which consists of 10 majors states, it’s in an era prior to Zhuge’s time. Wonderful isn’t it? (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. After all, my chinese history knowledge is quite pathetic).
7) A continuation from the the point above, the english subtitles, while grammatically correct and meaningful, is somewhat different from the Chinese subtitles, which in turn doesn’t show the exact words that the audio seem to project otherwise. So basically, the Chinese subtitles is a little off [with meaning intact], while English subtitles had some paraphrasing (re-phrasing and substitution at parts). Hic. How I manage to read all that? Shrugs.
8) I think some scenes are re-used, with slightly different angle and focus, though it’s meant to be of a different timeframe. Hic.
9) Leon and Kelly’s size must be somewhat similar, since Kelly’s armor could fit Leon nicely in the ending scenes. Haha.
My rating: 6/10. My observations didn’t really affect how I rated this show. Overall, it’s quite ok bah and it’s not bad enough to warrant a 5.5 imo. It has the elements of such a show, though the relationship (romance) portion may seem a little, erm, draggy. Haha.
p.s. I think I might be suffering withdrawal symptoms. I whack so many observations. Hohum.
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