A fine film- but nothing glaringly special

Rating: Null/10 (2 June 2001)

Let me just tell you, that I have seen MANY foreign films in my time. I take regular trips to Thailand, and have seen an excruciating number of state-of-the-art special effects, timeless love stories of the Orient, and vicious combat sequences. This story captures it all, but I just don't see what all of the hype is about. Don't get me wrong, it was a nice film with a sweet plot and some amazing action sequences (which were pretty awesome), but a huge amount of the time while reading several reviews, I was saying "I've already seen this, and this movie wasn't anything new to me." So, I'm sorry to be the dissent victim here, but I found nothing overwhelmingly original about it. And that's usually what catches my attention-originality. This applies to everything- movies, music, taste, etc. This movie did not capture that experience for me. I saw this movie on opening night, and although the acting was well-done, and the editing was great (kudos of Mr. Lee), I didn't find a lot of what I was looking for: exceptional acting, astounding action sequences, a beautiful love story (sorry I didn't think this one sufficed my romantic thrills enough). :)
A good effort, and a good job. Not one of the best movies, or one I would likely remember with gushing excited behavior. C+