Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon (2008)

Instant Favorite.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

"Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon" is an action movie that uses some history to justify lots of fights, too many close-ups, and some hammy dialogue. It makes for ninety-odd minutes of average fun, but not much more.The story is easy to follow: We have Andy Lau's Zilong, the unbeatable general, and... well, that's basically it. He goes around, has fights, looks like he's constipated (actually Lau's acting is good enough) and talks a lot. All of this with the fights between some kings (or emperors) for the unification of China as the background of the story. It will be easier to follow the story if you know a little bit of the hi-story. But it could be about anything, really, if it was for the plot. Paper thin.But if there's not much plot, and the characterization and acting is just average, what makes the movie interesting? Well, the fights are acceptable, and you have your good share of them. And even if the dialogue falls into the cheesy type, all this bigger-than-life speeches make for a good time. And it looks the part.Nothing amazing, but, as said in the title, good enough if you don't have much to do and are in for some action-history-fighting.

Three Kingdoms-ROTD is a kick ass Chinese historical epic taking place in the Three Kingdoms era of ancient China. The film is a reflective story taken from Zhao Yun's(or Zilong) perspective focusing on his life and his accomplishments in battle. Portraying the brave general Zhao Yun is Andy Lau. He gives a tremendous performance and is one of HK's top stars. He is quite prolific as an actor and gives great performances in many different genres. There also is an excellent support cast featuring Sammo Hung(who also is action choreographer), Maggie Q, Yu Rong Gong and the great Ti Lung as Guan Yu. This period action piece flows well with heavy doses of savage action and a brisk pace. Sammo's action choreography is top notch and the battle scenes are great with a good amount of blood spilled. The film looks awesome as well with great camera-work and tight editing. The dramatic side of this is super solid and in my opinion director Daniel Lee did a hell of a job in making this. Although this is smaller in scope than John Woo's Red Cliff, it is still epic, large scope film. However, as amazing a cinematic experience that Red Cliff is, Three Kingdoms ROTD is a film I end up watching more often as this film is just under two hours and Red Cliff clocks in at about six hours. Both film are absolutely awesome and I recommend both highly. This film is a few years old now and it really holds up, in fact I found myself enjoying this more upon rewatching it.

Based on the classical "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" Daniel Lee ventures back to one of the most important eras of Chinese history - the time of the titular Three Kingdoms, of ever-lasting conflict and battles, which formed many a legend. Here focus is directed to the famed and glorified general Zhao Zilong (an ever-pleasing Andy Lau), a supposedly undefeated warrior, who brought glory to the the kingdom of Liu Bei. Backed by the military genius of Zhuge Liang (Cunxin Pu) and the remaining Five Tiger Generals, the heroes bathed in glory.Opulent, radiant the settings, scenery, cinematography, lighting and general art direction borders on perfection with each shot nurtured and tended too is this lavish epic. With appropriate heroic pathos to accompany the story-telling Zhao Zilong is presented as a chaste and immaculate warrior, as if almost striving towards a Buddhist transcendence. Unrivalled in battle, loved by all men and glorified even by contemporaries, Zhao shines even when riding out by himself against an entire army. Naturally such a directorial choice can't be criticised, similarly as chanson de geste type poems are what they are: glorified monuments of heroic deeds, unabashedly singing praise to the main protagonist. In a take it or leave it deal, Zhao Zilong is a hero, unfailing and relentless in pursuit of unification of the kingdoms, even in tragedy a man suit for tall tales of glory.However "Three Kingdoms" falters due to one rather overbearing glitch: lack of middle story. The depiction of Zhao Zilong's life basically limits itself to an extravagant presentation of two moments of his story: the beginning and the end of his legend. Unfortunately Daniel Lee fails to even trouble himself with building any back-story to the character (who was he? where did he come from? what motivated him?) or worse yet fails to build any backbone to Zilong, instead fast-forwarding us from his initial feat of bravery as a young man, straight into the time of him being an elderly general, the sole remaining of the Five Tiger Generals, right before what was to be his final battle.The whole context of in between is forfeited, thus never even truly affording the audience an understanding as to the prominence of his battle achievements or allowing him to build an emotional connection with viewers. Such a thinly presented story is however aptly summarised in the fading line of the movie itself "How many things before and after fade into gossip and laughter."

China has been churning out historical war films like there's no tomorrow, and THREE KINGDOMS is yet another in a long line of similar lavish and stylish epics. This one's a co-production with South Korea and sees Andy Lau yet again playing a brave and loyal soldier who finds himself battling immense odds in ancient China.THREE KINGDOMS certainly looks the part, with hulking battle sequences featuring huge armies massing and meeting on sweeping plains. The quality of the effects is such that you can't tell that some of these soldiers are CGI animations, like in LORD OF THE RINGS; who knows, maybe they aren't! The action choreography is slightly blurry, so that it's easy to miss crucial detail in the battle sequences, and there's a slight over-reliance on wirework, but for the most part this is a vicious, viscous piece of cinematography.The storyline is equally interesting, with Andy Lau playing a guy who rises from the ranks to become a hero, and Sammo Hung supporting him in an atypical part of a cowardly man who also ends up rising high. Unfortunately, the viewer is also saddled with the overrated Maggie Q (NAKED WEAPON) playing a warrior queen; everything about her screams artifice and hollowness to me, but the good news is that she isn't given too much screen time. More dependable genre stalwarts like Ti Lung and Rongguang Yu are given meaty roles, however.The first half of the film depicts a fairly typical rise-to-power type storyline, but the second half is much more interesting, with events skipping forward twenty years in the future and the outcome much more uncertain. In fact, it gets better as it goes on, featuring a climax that can only be described as epic in feel. THREE KINGDOMS might be easy to miss amid a welter of similar product, but it's certainly entertaining enough to reward the viewer's attention.