Nice acting, cinematography, music, and costume but bad movie overall.

Rating: 4/10 (22 March 2001)

Everyone seems to be praising this movie. However, I am not one of those. I agree that the movie has many positives such as nice acting by many well-known actors, nice cinematography, excellent music, nice costumes, etc. However, if you consider the total package, the movie is not worth seeing. Here are my reasons. First, the English subtitle is a big drawback. I hate looking back and forth between the main screen and the subtitle lines. Second, there are so many subplots going on at the same time and the movie did a poor jobs in pursuing them - the love story between Li Mu Bai and Shu Lien, the love story b/w the princess and the bandit, the princess and her teacher (Jade Fox)relation, the father and daughter effort to revenge the mother's death on the hand of Jade Fox, ... Third, while the special effects are excellent, many scenes are illogical to the point of being hilarious. Walking on water, jumping to the top of a tall tree, jumping over a house, a sword that cut other metals like butter, ... Give me a break! I find it quite a bore to see two persons fighting on tops of two trees. Each person clinging to the tree, and wait a few minutes for the wind to blow the tree tops together to exchange one blow. It is a torture to watch scenes like those. I was disappointed.