2nd worst film I've seen

Rating: 1/10 (4 February 2005)

Well, where to start? OK, I know, here: nothing happens. You think something may have been happening, part way through the film, but you discover that none of that really happened. And when something does happen, it is either a) completely pointless, or b) based on pretentious and overblown philosophical ideas, which can actually be summed up as "the end justifies the means". To convey this you get a lot of use of single colours (all one colour of yellow leaves...which later turn to all one colour of red leaves, all green hanging silks, etc. etc.) and lots of lingering looks on people's faces after they have just a) been betrayed b) been killed c) been betrayed and killed or have d) betrayed, killed or betrayed and killed someone else - apart from the fact that nobody actually gets betrayed, and nobody gets killed until the final 3 minutes of the film (apart from hundreds of extras, of course). It's like a grossly inflated version of one of those poor stories that 9 year-olds make up which end with "... it had all been a dream". The fight scenes are highly stylised with lots of spinning and twirling miles away from the opponent.
In short, an hour-and-a-half film that seems like 4 hours. A friend of mine actually liked the film but refused to believe that it was only 1 1/2 hours - he thought it must have been 3.
The only film worse than this? "The End of Violence"