1/1/00 7/10 Good, but not that good.

Rating: 6/10 (4 January 2001)

Critically acclaimed, with most pros falling over themselves to praise this thing, this movie just isn't all that spectacular. Chow Yun-Fat is underused, although it's nice to see Michelle Yeoh so much. Zhang Ziyi is amazingly pretty, matched nicely with the appropriately hunky Chang Chen, and hey she can swing a sword.
The wire work doesn't work for me at all. I much prefer Jackie Chan jumping through a ladder, i.e. stunt work, to this magical floating up walls business, i.e. special effects. The set piece up in the bamboo trees didn't move me one bit.
Narratively, this thing is all over the map. There's a complicated plot, too daft to recount, that's supposedly intentionally silly, but it's silly just the same. There's tiresome flashback which still fails to explain why Jen Yu is so annoyingly selfish; she remains unredeemed by her attempt at redemption at the end.
Sir Te sums it all up when the Green Destiny is stolen for the second (and feels like nineteenth) time. Where does this end?
ejb