I was disappointed with this. It starts off ultra dark and I was really into it, but after about 10 minutes it starts to let down. The fight with Chen Kuan tai was pretty cool. Actually that whole scene was nice, but not really any other stand out scenes for me. I didn’t like the main female villain. She’s super hot, but I hate the way her fight scenes look. The final fight was a major letdown. I was glad when it was over.
Not a terrible movie, but I give it a 6/10 rating at best.
Belated review
An opulent wuxia, great sets, great costumes, great real and CGI landscapes. Cameos from Sammo Hung and Chan Koon Tai. Donnie is a cold-blooded assassin, trained from birth, who carries around a box like Legendary Weapons of Kung Fu. This box is a mechanized box o’ blades: swords, daggers, darts with lines, spring-loaded quarrels. Zhao Wei looks like an anime heroine with those huge eyes - and there are plenty of scenes where she demonstrates her uncanny ability to tear up those peepers with complete control of her ducts to deliver maximum impact. What can I say? I’ve been crushing on Zhao Wei since she was the goalie in Shaolin Soccer. There’s another actor who I have to look up that wields double scimitars that attached together at the pommels for an S-shaped boomerang. He rocks a Capt. Jack Sparrow bandana with cornrows and dreadlocks. And there’s a great villainess, who I also must look up, who has metal coiled into her braids like medusa and wields this weird bladed chain whip weapon. She does this weird hypno-trick when she fights where she slips out of her clothes, leaving her opponents to stab empty floating robes - it’s a nice CGI effect, although not titillating in the way one might anticipate. There are plenty other colorful swordsmen too, plenty more to get minced up by Donnie and his box of blades. Which brings me to the main point here. Sword fights, sword fights, sword fights. Lots of 'em. This film serves them up hot and keeps them coming. Fun ones too, with lots of flying about, crazy cuts, and chopping through thick wood support columns. Very satisfying in the sword fight dept.
finally finished watching it, i gotta say i liked it…i mean in a way it was typical fanfare wuxia. but what made me really like it was the box with swords, very desperado. i remember when i was in film school i did a short film about a hit man who had a coffin filled with assorted weapons…i still have the footage in my freezer actually, so there was some nostalgia!! i had a donnie yen marathon i watched this, wuxia and lost bladesmen…wuxia was on another level…lost bladesmen im having a hard time getting through.