Brian Zhang Larsen’s Blog

I now start off my new category “3 of a kind”. Posts in this category will contain three short reviews of movies which is similar in some way. The similarity can be of different kind and can be about the nationality, genre, plot or whatever. I think i owe to say that i am normally very uncritical about movies, and enjoy most genres no matter the budget, plot or kind of digital sound (although this one is important!). I love hollywood blockbusters, and i am certainly not to posh to say that a large budget (mostly on CGI) and nice effects can save a movie from an awful plot, and still make it cool. So you should take this into consideration if you should happen to get influenced by my recommendations. I start this off with three Chinese movies which is relatively new, and worth noticing. They are all action movies and epical/historical in some way, and none of them is starring the Chinese actor Andy Lau, who normally appears in every movie produced in China.

I watch a lot of asian movies partly due to interest, and partly because of my Chinese girlfriend. She is the main reason why i fell over these three movies. An obvious Chinese “3 of a kind” would be Crouching tiger hidden dragon, Hero and House of flying daggers which all are great movies, but you have surely already watched those… Instead i chose the following:

Seven swords is directed by Hark Tsui which also directed the legendary movie Knock off (please read the plot outline at IMDB, it is hilarious) and the movie (or was it a Coca Cola commercial?) Double Team. Movies known in the west, unlike this chinese tale. Some military guy (bad guy) wants to become rich and at the same time enforce the new law of the country, which is to ban all martial arts. Some people (good guys) want to put an end to this, and seven “chosen ones” goes to a mountain where some other good guy lives. He gives them each a sword, which each has its special ability, and they then go back to save their village. Stuff like poisoned water, spies and a Korean girl also appears in this movie. All in all the movie is quite good, although maybe a bit too long. The fighting scenes has many quick cuts, which make them hard to follow and confusing. But i like the twist with the different swords…

The Myth stars Jackie Chan in a rare non-cop role. He is an archeologist who is trying to uncover the location of the Qin emperors tomb. Because of his lively dreams that he is a Qin dynasty general (who actually lived), parts of the movie is about this old dynasty … and of course the movie also has some kung fu scenes. This movie taught me a lot about the Qin dynasty and the first emperor which tomb actually have never been found to this date. The Qin dynasty was the first Chinese dynasty and the closest anyone have been to finding the tomb was the discovery the terra cotta army, which first was believed to be the tomb. But no… the tomb is of many thought to contain a big treasure, and many people have tried to find it through history. Well, without revealing too much, Jackie finds it, and he practices some kung fu there…

The Promise is kind of a strange movie… I really don’t know what to think of this movie, because i don’t have much to compare it with. This movie uses a lot of CGI and has very beautiful scenery… And the main plot is ok too. Witch gives princess course, slave saves princess, princess fall in love, general also wants princess, bad guy wants to kill everyone. But some elements is just too lame.. the slave eventually learns to run faster than time… Of course this is not tried to be explained using any kind of science which would only make this more lame. And there is more of these too far fetched supernatural elements, which kind of annoys me. This movie also contains kung fu scenes by the way.