The first hour of this movie is great and brings out a solid emotional story mixed with kung-fu. But the second half it starts to become pretty darn ridiculous with poor development. And loses the emotional value it started out with. The story is basically about a warlord Hao Jie(Andy Lau) that starts off as a man that angry full with ambitions of power and wealth but also lacks compassion. And don't blink an eye even when taking lives. And his right hand man is Cao Man(Nicholas Tse). Hao Jie chooses his ambition and tries to wipe out his own sworn brother in war. And Cao Man uses it as an opportunity to overthrow Hao Jie. And Hao Jie becomes a wanted man and ends up in a shaolin temple. And Hao Jie starts to learn the ways of the shaolin temple. Hao Jie also meets one of the head monk by the name of Jing Neng played by jacky wu who looks like the Korean actor Chun Jung-Myung a lot. Andy Lau did a good job of playing the cold character and also a sympathetic one. Nicholas Tse tries to pull off that drunk don't give a crap looking like high all the time type of villain. But he doesn't quite seem to pull it off like how Lee Byung-hun is able to pull off. The problem is with this movie is that there just isn't enough development where it's needed. Hao Jie makes a 180 degree change way too drastically and some of the characters you don't get attached to at all. Although they take up some screen time. This is mainly do to a lot of the deleted scenes that is added on to extras for the DVD. In fact I think some deleted scenes should have been added onto the movie. Cause some parts has some character development so it adds to the value of those characters. So when they die it actually leaves a bit of an impact. But that isn't the case for this movie, I honestly didn't care who lives or who dies just which side wins as the end. I usually always like Jackie Chan in movies but his over the top kung-fu takes away from this movie. Since this is a serious kung-fu flick and not a fantasy one. If this carried the flare it had for the first half with the second half it would have been a great film but as it is. It's a pretty mediocre flick.
6.6/10
6.6/10