Stupendously overrated movie

Rating: 3/10 (6 December 2005)

I was looking forward to this movie. Folks who had talked about "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "House of Flying Daggers" (both far superior films, by the way) had lauded this movie as though it was the next coming of "Star Wars."
The plot, what there is to speak of, seems to center around a humble "prefect" (which apparently means mind-numbing assassin in the time period in which the movie takes place) who had executed three assassins that had formerly threatened the king. Something that is blatantly obvious from the beginning of the film is the intense "evil" of the king, the likability of the assassins, and the intense boredom which is Jet Li -- all of this contributes to the complete "I don't care" attitude of the viewer (me). The plot unfolds in flashback style as Jet Li regales the king in what can only have been the worst story ever told. He hunts down the assassins for about five minutes, then fights each of them for about 8 hours. I suppose if you're the kind of person who likes to watch someone else play Street Fighter II for hours, this is your kind of movie.
A lot is made of the artistic side of this movie. OK, I admit, there are lots of water droplets, leaves, and guys and gals flying around on cables. In a movie like "Crouching Tiger...", you might be inclined to be so drawn into the movie where you don't notice or you may even buy in to it, as we all buy the laser and jet sounds in space in Star Wars. In a movie where you notice these kinds of things-- well, it seems fake and contrived. And they don't look very good, folks-- Especially the scene with the rain of arrows. The billowy cloths were nice though, though I can't say they served some purpose other than to be cool or billowy.
Finally, if you manage to survive the intense displeasure of watching the movie in English (as opposed to English subtitles), you'll notice that all of the voice actors seem to have attended the Hayden Christiansen International School of Acting Really Hard. Money well spent, folks.
The DVD commentary, if I could write it, would go a little like this: "Well, I couldn't really come up with a reason to have everyone fight one at a time, so I just had everyone stand around and look real intense like they were fighting with their MINDS! Intense, huh? Then, I had Jet Li mercilessly beat the crap out of somebody backstage to get all of his emotions out of him before he came into the studio. This was important, since I couldn't get him to act so boring without it."
Personally, I liked this movie better when it was called Wrestlemania XII.