Like the title says, this is one of those movies. Good attempt with many bits of good elements but collaged together into a mess that depending on your tolerance, leave you unsatisfied at the very least.
First off, great scenery though heavily filtered that end up ruined the scenes.(At least for me). Music sounds great and make everything more atmospheric. Acting wasn't terrible but could definitely improved. Set design and everything else props wise looks solid. The only big thing then is how the director delivered the story through the film. I haven't read the novel by the original author which this movie is based on so I can't compare. Without getting into too much detail, the story sets during the Han Dynasty of China, revolving a man's journey and encounter at the western frontier where nomadic tribes kept pestering the empire's borders. The focus of the story is on the literal "transformation" of this man before, during and after. The movie involves a lot of fast and short cuts that I personally dislike. There were quite a few of shuffling around the time of the events to fast track the experience of the character(At the start of the movie)to the audience which might turn some people off but I actually liked. Though the cuts were rather short but the movie was a slow one which isn't a bad thing and I honestly liked the first half of the movie with its little guessing game of what happened and some rather good exploitations of inner emotions but as the movie went on, it started to go down hill, eventually ended up in a mess of a movie with too much extra footage that felt shouldn't be there and the ending made for a lot to be desired.
This is a movie that had good material to be sure. I am sure the novel would be better than this but this film isn't the worst either. In short, if the film had better editing and "tiding" up, it could have been an enjoyable movie.
So take that with a grain of salt.
First off, great scenery though heavily filtered that end up ruined the scenes.(At least for me). Music sounds great and make everything more atmospheric. Acting wasn't terrible but could definitely improved. Set design and everything else props wise looks solid. The only big thing then is how the director delivered the story through the film. I haven't read the novel by the original author which this movie is based on so I can't compare. Without getting into too much detail, the story sets during the Han Dynasty of China, revolving a man's journey and encounter at the western frontier where nomadic tribes kept pestering the empire's borders. The focus of the story is on the literal "transformation" of this man before, during and after. The movie involves a lot of fast and short cuts that I personally dislike. There were quite a few of shuffling around the time of the events to fast track the experience of the character(At the start of the movie)to the audience which might turn some people off but I actually liked. Though the cuts were rather short but the movie was a slow one which isn't a bad thing and I honestly liked the first half of the movie with its little guessing game of what happened and some rather good exploitations of inner emotions but as the movie went on, it started to go down hill, eventually ended up in a mess of a movie with too much extra footage that felt shouldn't be there and the ending made for a lot to be desired.
This is a movie that had good material to be sure. I am sure the novel would be better than this but this film isn't the worst either. In short, if the film had better editing and "tiding" up, it could have been an enjoyable movie.
So take that with a grain of salt.