Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon (Hong Kong)The GistBased on the novels of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, we get to see Andy Lau, fight, act cool, fight again, act righteous, fight summore and then become the legendary hero Zhi Long. We then get a huge load of familiar-looking co-stars with the likes of Sammo Hung, Andy On, Damian Lau, Ti Lung, Vanness Wu (F4) and a host of familiar faces which you most probably wouldn’t know their names if I told you. Oh yeah, we also have Maggie Q, which doesn’t have her name in the credits in Chinese characters. She, however, had 99% screen time in all the trailers.
What Do I Think?I remember when I was a young kid I somehow was stuck in my auntie’s house one day. I couldn’t watch TV or play with anything else because there was painting going on. The only thing I could do was to watch the paint dry. What a horrendous experience, I tell you.
Halfway watching this movie, I was reminded of that experience again, something I had never thought of for more than a decade. The blandness of the film had reached somewhere in my books, one of the highest levels. Going through the film was nothing but a dreaded chore.
Recently we had costume epics like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, House of Flying Daggers, The Banquet, The Promise, Curse of the Golden Flower, Warlords and Battle of Wits. Each of this film had something fresh to offer to viewers Crouching Tiger – Zhang Ziyi, Hero – Great usage of colors and amazing cinematography, Flying Daggers – Stylish fight scenes, The Banquet – Hamlet’s story in China, The Promise – Unpredictable and interesting storyline, Curse of the Golden Flower – China’s support, Warlords – Jet Li actually acting and Battle of Wits – war strategies. What does Three Kingdoms have to offer? A miscast of having Maggie Q.
Daniel Lee as director had only impressed me once with A Fighter’s Blues, Andy Lau’s celebrated 100th film. His other films were pretty forgettable, such as Star Runner and Dragon Squad. Lee reuses his colleagues in those said films here once again.
Halfway through the movie, it felt like re-watching DVDs of the movies I mentioned earlier. Yawning uncontrollably, I was asking myself, what am I looking forward to in this movie? Then I suddenly remembered that Maggie Q hadn’t appeared yet. Perhaps her presence would (hopefully) blow me away.
Sad to say, it didn’t. When she was onscreen (only during the last third of the film), I couldn’t excited enough to be engaged with her character. She wasn’t too smart nor evil enough. She wasn’t controversial enough. There was just not enough to be enough. However she did a good job in the words coming out of her mouth. They sync with the Mandarin words I hear. Her pipa-playing skills were convincing enough.
When I was a kid watching paint dry, I remember that they had used bright white as the paint color. It was an amazing choice of color from a well-known brand of paint. In this film, Andy Lau was an amazing choice of color; he performs and he delivers. Too bad, that’s about all the good things of the film, everything else was boring and bland.
By the way, enough with Andy Lau in costume dramas already! How about some for Aaron Kwok and Louis Koo as well?
Rating: 4/10
Last updated: 2009-08-12 01:08:06 by joekhor
