Bravo.

Rating: Null/10 (29 August 2004)

Poetry in montage form. This is what film aspires to. I hope I can make a movie as beautiful as this one day. For the naysayers, stick to your 'Kill Bill" wanna-be-hip martial arts rip-offs. That's why they have Tarantino's name as a presenter of this film; it's for the imbeciles who are weaned on the teats of Hollywood Amero-trash. Tarantino must drag them in kicking and screaming to appreciate the images he emulates.
The great thing about this film is that it makes you realize what a wealth of history ancient cultures have. U.S. films will never have that gift of spectacle; that's why we have to set our films in the future to come close to any type of pageantry. As for the criticism about the communist aspects of the film, I think it's brave to re-vision history's bloody past. Communism is a pretty recent political system (compared to thousands of years of pre-Christian/Islamic/Judaic era Chinese history) and it's interesting to watch a film that espouses a culture of loyalty and sacrifice for the nation. It would appear that these ideals only helped this nation embrace similar communist ideology. But once again, Bravo. Too bad it had to wait two years to be shown over here.