A beautiful film

Rating: Null/10 (22 February 2003)

warning: some spoilers.
I liked this movie because:
1) its superb performances even in such watered-down roles-especially those of Maggie Cheung (silver berlin-best actress)and Tony Leung (cannes-best actor)and Chen Dao-Ming.
2) its has some of the most beautiful scenery ever filmed in film history.
3) the flying-it's more realistic (and less abundant) than CTHD. even though some people simply can't stand flying, I advise them to treat it as an artistic element. It adds so much to the film's style. and anyways, in ancient chinese legends, there is a type of kung fu called "heng gung" (pin. ching gong) which, with high mastery, can render its wielder with the power to leap extraordinarily far and high, as well as run fast and light. Its ultimate level is suppose to be no different than flying. Thus, in order to fully encompass the Wu Xia genre, wuxia films must include...well...some flying.
4) the cinematography is almost unmatched by any other films this year-its powerful capture of warriors gliding across a mirror-like lagoon is no less difficult than it is spectacular-in order for the lagoon to be completely reflect everything above the water, the filming must be taken in early morning at a specific time within a time window of only 2 hours.
5) effects
bad things:
1)borrowed heavily from akira kurosawa's style-too much borrowing 2)sends the wrong message-"all under heaven"-to stop the 7 kingdoms from continuing fighting is not a reason for ethnic cleansing/genocide and complete eradication of the six other cultures. 3)wrong portrayal of qin chi huang-he was probably much more horrible than Stolin and Hitler-not a wise, sympathetic genius king. History records that he was a psychopath. maybe this is where the propaganda comes from
overall, it is a beautiful film.