Pretty darn good

Rating: Null/10 (30 April 2003)

Reading the other reviews, this film has had some bad remarks on it. I, for one, really enjoyed it, and thought it was much better Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The different colour schemes throughout the film depict the different views of what happened; I think it was brilliantly done.
To say the story was lacking is worrying seeing as this is a piece of true history of China; Overall the story was excellently told, with fair acting and absolutely gorgeous cinematography. My mother, who dislikes martial arts films and hated crouching tiger, loved this film. The film isn't evolving around the martial arts, but around a separate story, with martial arts on the sideline (shown as an art and philosophy, rather than just a fight). It's definitely one of the better films I had seen this year, and I hope many more like it will come out of China.
I'd give it an 8.5/10, so I'll round it up to a 9.