fight after fight after fight

Rating: Null/10 (9 September 2003)

At beginning this film seemed stunning: massive sets, rapid action. Beautiful swordfights. Then there were more swordfights. Then there was a plot twist and more swordfight...more twists...more fights...now i was sort of hoping for the story to move along. No, the same people went through even more duels which lead to...more duels. At this point i was feeling unpleasant. The characters were as one-dimensional as in hardcore porn films. The loud visual style was rapidly getting self repeative and boring. The only way for the characters to accomplish ANYTHING was...duelling with swords. I couldn't believe the same people who were putting down Matrix 2 were praising this unending cavalcade of increasingly pointless fight scenes. This is one of the most superficial films i have ever seen...sure, it has a message: "Building large nations is more important than peace". Oh yes, and "calligraphy and sworsmanship are alike". Now that you have heard these pearls of wisdom, you can forget this flick unless you like endless swordfight porn.