OK film, but terrible fight scenes

Rating: Null/10 (3 February 2008)

Badly choreographed fights scenes detract from what would otherwise have been a decent film. The traditional Kung Fu movie always had the actors perform superhuman feats, but they were done in a way that always left one thinking, wow, how did he do that. But in this movie, the wire work is so obvious it kills all possible enjoyment of the martial arts. One doesn't think, "how did she do that" because the wires are just so obvious. And if the flying and jumping is so obviously fake that it make you think the entire fight scene is fake. Realism is fight scene is especially important when viewing a woman engaged in martial arts; to buy into the idea that she is a great warrior, the audience has to believe in her skill. So its particularly important that skill show be at least plausible.
Visually the film is stunning. The story might have been interesting, but I was so turned off by the poor quality of the action sequences that I really stopped paying attention to the story. I've seen many, many eastern martial arts films and this one has the worse choreography of them all.