Sakra (2023) User Reviews

A Modern Wuxia Fantasy, Martial Arts

[tkdlifemagazine · 6/10 · 27 May 2023]

International martial arts and action superstar, Donnie Yen, wrote, Directed, and stars in this martial arts epic adaptation of Louis Cha's Chinese fantasy novel. It is an action packed, larger than life tale of a respected warrior, betrayed, and forced to defend his name and honor.

The film is visually stunning and packed with fantastic martial arts fight scenes, fanciful costumes, and epic sets. It is a large scale, family oriented action fantasy, despite its significant martial arts and sword violence. It is an ambitious project with a lot of heart. It deliberately has many of the tropes of Chinese Kung Fu films, such as revenge, honor, and the desire to right a great wrong, even at the cost of the star's own life.

The production of the film is somewhere between American Western and Chinese martial arts fantasy, and it works for what it is. What it is not is the gritty, realistic type martial arts action film that Donnie Yen has become known for in recent years. While the cinematography and fight choreography are very good, they are not similar to his work in Flash Point, or John Wick 4.

Yen and the acting from the supporting cast is very good, but it is appropriately hyperbolic to match the script, the story, and the genre.

The film is very enjoyable. If you love Wuxia films add an additional star, and if you love Donnie Yen, add one more. While I am not a huge fan of Wuxi films, or high wire based, martial arts action films I do love DONNIE YEN and this was worth seeing.

This international Wuxi fantasy is distributed by Well Go USA and is in Chinese with English subtitles.

An impressive visualization of Louis Cha's wuxia world, spectacular martial arts scenes but falls short on storytelling

[ObsessiveCinemaDisorder · 6/10 · 4 April 2023]

Sakra, a martial arts fantasy film produced and co-directed by Donnie Yen, delivers a grounded and gloriously detailed vision of Louis Cha's wuxia world, featuring spectacular martial arts choreography and beautiful production design.

While Sakra soars with its action, it falls short on storytelling. The script starts solidly but rushes to set up the sequel in its final act, sacrificing character depth for scope.

Adapted from Louis Cha's classic wuxia novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, the story is set during the Song Empire. Qiao Feng, the orphan leader of the Beggar's Sect, is framed for murdering sect leader Ma Dayuan and his adopted parents.

Qiao Feng is revealed to be a Khitan, the warring enemy of the Song Empire, and is banished from the Beggar's Sect. Wrestling with his new identity, Qiao Feng seeks the murderer of his adopted parents among the martial arts clans...

For Sakra, Donnie Yen drew from his experience choreographing 2006's comic book adaptation Dragon Tiger Gate and absorbed the lessons from the CGI-driven Storm Riders series, and creates a realism with its own set of rules.

There are long horse riding sequences through real Chinese landscapes, in which the film invests its time in. This grounds the wuxia world and presents a sense of geographic scale where heroes ride for days.

Every martial arts move, whether realistic or fantastical, is motivated, has weight, and flows well.

The stunt team has meticulously worked out all the power levels for the fighting. The way the fights escalate from sparring to superhuman feats to eventual chi blasts flows exceptionally well. You never question why a fighter didn't begin with their ultimate finishing move as there are physical limits in place and using a powerful move comes with immense strain.

People do fly, but sparingly. The way the film presents chi, as a steamy wave of hot air, was perfect.

All that said, the appeal of Louis Cha's wuxia stories is story and characters, not just fighting. The biggest challenge of adapting Louis Cha is condensing the material, which is why the best adaptations have been for TV.

Sakra uses its screentime disproportionally, devoting a lot of time to developing the Qiao Feng character in the first half. As we move to the second half, the script struggles to downsize the immense scale of Louis Cha's novel and plays like a showreel. New characters pop up to set up the next movie in a Marvel-like fashion. Being unfamiliar with the source material, I was confused and lost.

While there are many great things about it, Sakra ends up being a big missed opportunity and will be remembered most for its fight sequences. A Louis Cha wuxia cinematic universe would be awesome.

You know when a football player is about to score a goal and then fumbles the ball, and the sports fans scream passionately at the television? Sakra made me feel that way.

It's... almost there... if it can only... Sigh...

Entertaining action film that's not very good.

[tlogan8 · 6/10 · 25 January 2023]

I'll make this short and sweet...

The script is predictable and unoriginal...

The direction is poor...

The editing extremely disjointed...

CGI is very good...

Overall, this is a visually stunning action ride but that is not enough to keep me entertain for 2 hours. The plot and editing is all over the place making it very frustrating to follow and I find myself waiting for just the action scenes without caring for any of the characters or story.

As much as I enjoy Donnie Yen's work I'm not sure that directing this film himself is the right choice for this project, but that's just my opinion.

The actions are GREAT!! BUT it's a little long and rushed at times!

[ajleong-98725 · 6/10 · 16 January 2023]

It is an adaptation of the "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils," from Jin Yong's Wuxia novel. Well, the storyline is pretty simple and straightforward, very much like KungFu Cult Master, whereby the main character is accused of many incidents, and all sects attempt to kill him, and that's where the fight starts and ends.

The pace is alright, packed with action, BUT it could be slow at certain parts! I thought it had ended several times, but it keeps going with a runtime of 130 minutes!

In terms of actions, I like it very much! You could feel the strengths and forces of every hit, and the CGI has enhanced the visual excitement to another level! They really did a great job of combining the "wirework + CGI" and martial arts into a more effective action movie.

A few drawbacks as follows:

Firstly, the movie slows down due to the relationship between Qiao Feng and A Zhu. Yet, it's NOT well managed in such a way that it disrupts the flow and momentum of the movie!

Secondly, Donnie Yen appears to be only good in action, BUT not in romance! There is no spark of chemistry between Qiao Feng and A Zhu! Donnie's acting is rather stiff when it comes to intimate moments with A Zhu. Somehow it's more like a father-daughter relationship than a lover's.

Thirdly, the sub-plot in the 2nd half is rather odd, especially on the introduction of new characters of A Zu's parents and her rebellious sister. It could be due to time constraints, things are rushing off, so it does not gel well to the overall movie and looks disconnected!

Finally, with the ending, we could predict that there may be Part 2 in future. Since it will be a sequel, why NOT break this movie into 2 decent movies, instead of rushing everything out, causing an uneven focus on some details. Also I believe that audiences could enjoy it better, rather than having watched a lengthy movie without proper addresses of some plots.

I gave 6/ 10. Despite the weaknesses above, it's an ok movie for casual entertainment. As said, I love the action and fighting scenes, with the right speed, strength, and force! A watch-able one for this Chinese New Year! Go, Go, Go!!

A Dream Return to Song Dynasty

[kluseba · 7/10 · 19 April 2023]

Tin Lung Baat Bou, internationally known as Sakra, goes back to Hong Kong's wu xia trademarks that have marked the art of cinema between the late eighties and early years of the new millennium. References to movies such as A Chinese Ghost Story, Once Upon a Time in China, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero and House of Flying Daggers can be observed throughout this film by genre fans. While this movie is a sincere homage to these influential classics, it however never quite reaches their memorable quality.

The story is rather interesting. Kiu Fung is a child abandoned by his unknown parents who grows up in a remote farming community and is taken precious care of by his loving adoptive parents. He learns the art of Shaolin, becomes an outstanding martial artist and rises the ranks to become the leader of a martial arts organization. Things turn sour when Kiu Fung is accused of several murders he hasn't committed and is now tracked down by former friends, partners and supporters. The protagonist goes on an epic journey to clear his name and find the true culprits with the help of beautiful servant and thief Azhu.

On the positive side, this film is based upon the novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils by Jin Yong and adapts the source material's twisted story line and profound characters. The cinematography is stunning with calm, precise and swift camera work that avoids shaky sections, rapid movements and nervous cuts. The settings vary from poor farms over wild steppes to elegant palaces that deserve to be admired on the big screen.

On the negative side, the action scenes are exaggerated to a point that they become unintentionally funny. Exaggeration has always been an important element of wu xia cinema but this idea is pushed to new extremes right from the opening fighting scene that is completely blown out of proportions and doesn't suit the movie's overall gritty, serious and realistic tone at all. This film is filled with so many plot twists, diversified characters and changes of location that the directors could have made an entire television series out of these elements but instead opted for a movie of two hours and ten minutes that simply feels overloaded and tough to digest. The film's scenes during and even after the credits indicate a potential sequel as more new questions are being asked than old questions are being answered. If you don't want to feel obligated to follow a new epic franchise, you should not watch this movie at all.

At the end of the day, Tin Lung Baat Bou, better known as Sakra around the world, is an entertaining experience for fans of period martial arts films. The visual effects, epic soundtrack, wonderful settings, tense plot and interesting characters should keep most viewers hooked from start to finish. However, some action scenes are even more exaggerated than the material of some shallow contemporary superhero flicks, the film feels overloaded with promising ideas that don't give it any air to breathe and most questions aren't even answered when this film eventually ends. To be fair, genre fans should appreciate a very decent wu xia movie but potential new or even occasional fans should stick to the classics mentioned in the introduction first before being able to fully appreciate this new movie.

Skip the Film - Youtube the Fight Scenes

[PartTimeCritic · 3/10 · 22 April 2023]

SAKRA (C-) is Donnie Yen's attempt at crafting a new epic Wuxia classic, bit instead crafts three decent action sequences surrounded by a hot flaming mess of storytelling. I'm not even going to try and give a plot description other than to say it takes place in Ancient China and features a horrifically confusing and unnecessarily convoluted plot with Donnie Yen's good guy kung fu artist constantly being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's apparently based on a wuxia novel series that's rooted in Buddhist ideas, but it's just not very accessible, even for a charitable and engaged outsider like me. I knew I was in for a confusing mess when even the opening title cards were a confusing mess of an English translation. The good news is that the large budget is all on the screen with incredible looking sets and great costumes. Donnie Yen has been quoted as saying this was his attempt to make a Marvel like film using the wuxia genre and he absolutely failed to do so. He doesn't seem to recognize that the power of the first few phases of Marvel films was in how simple and straightforward they were: Simple plots with instantly likeable characters and great action sequences. Sakra does emulate some of the superhero like abilities into its action sequences, but Yen's character largely mopes about the film while most scenes feature endless talking and complications. The three major action sequences we get are pretty good, featuring impressive wire work and stunts, but they also feature oppressive sound design and CGI that feels like it could have used a bit more love. Skip the film and youtube the fight sequences in a few months from now.

Adapted from novel but can be better

[ryanmo-35178 · 6/10 · 12 February 2023]

Donnie acted as the master of the gang of begged who is good at martial arts. However, as he was not born in China, the people around him just did not believe in him. Also with the betrayal of his friends and a woman who killed her husband, he needed to find out who he is and who is playing tricks on him. At last, his lover tried to protect her father and was killed by Doonie. A tragedy! The plot was not good as it just adapted a part of the novel. However the fighting scenes would not let you down when Donnie is here, especially the one he fought with the whole China! If u are only looking for exciting scenes, it is not bad to watch.

Butchered to hell

[kennyzjho · 3/10 · 26 January 2023]

This is a movie adaptation of Jin Yong's Demi Gods, Semi Devils. It is one of my favourite novels. I've enjoyed almost all of the regular TV show adaptations. The most recent one wasn't so great but it's still heads and shoulder above this movie version.

I love Donnie Yen but he peaked in the 80s and 90s movies and Hong Kong TV shows. He can't act. His range is angry and plank of wood. He's great in action though. That's probably why his fame in Hong Kong was limited. He got some fame in Hollywood and was then treated like royalty in China again.

He's a bit like Nicholas Cage, he has some decent stuff under his belt but there's more and more turkeys.

He's not cut out for production and directing.

The story for this novel is quite complex and there are 3 protagonists. This movie concentrates on 1 of them, Qiao Feng, although all 3 of them are in it. The guy in the cage is Duan Yu, his sworn brother. That they become sworn brothers is mentioned but their relationship between the cage and them meeting again is never shown. The other sworn brother is Xu Zhu who is heard but whose face is never shown.

This movie requires prior knowledge of the plot as it doesn't really explain much. You are expected to know. The problem is it is inferior to the TV adaptations plus they have drastically changed some plot points. So what you know isn't accurate to this movie. There is a reveal at the end but they don't even explain who is who etc so it was absolutely pointless. If someone didn't know what went on in the movie they likely are still confused after.

There is no chemistry between the 2 leads. She is always crying. Most of them are decades older than they should be. Donnie Yen's character is around 30, same with his rival. But they are 50-60 in real life.

Moments where they could given some emotional scenes are squandered. The dialogue in the novel and tv versions is snappy and enjoyable. They discard that and pad it out with cliche lines. It makes you cringe. This is basically Game of Thrones season 8 on steroids. GOT S8 at least had enjoyable parts even if it was neutered.

The changes here are all inferior. Who on earth wrote and signed off on this script? The editing is kind of bad too. They must have cut a lot of footage out due to time being too long.

The action is a mixed bag. There are some good action scenes. But the more it goes on the worse it gets. When he is gravely injured and gets mobbed, the horde gently touch him with their swords but can't injure him.

Countless people are not even introduced. You are just supposed to know.

Lady Ma's death is altered. Why? The original is way more satisfying.

If you saw the new adaptation of the Kung Fu Colt Master, this is in the same ball park, possibly worse.

He should stick to acting, support roles or retire.

Even for hardcore fans like me this was a turkey. Do not watch this if you are not familiar with the story. They really had to try to make it this terrible.

Poorly directed, incoherent storyline and cheesy dialogues

[chadleong · 2/10 · 24 January 2023]

Donnie Yen needs to stick to acting and not directing. The direction was sloppy and incoherent, the storyline was all over the place and the dialogues were cheesy.

The characters lacked depth and development, which made it hard to keep track of the plot. A new actress, Ah Zi which happened to be an important character was only introduced in 1h30m hrs in the movie and the whole introduction was rushed with lame fight scenes. Why would someone decided to attack their daughter and then tried to mend back in the next scene. Nonsensical. The fight scenes were poorly choreographed and were not believable at all. The special effects were also underwhelming, and didn't really add anything to the movie.

The actors seemed to be struggling to remember their lines and filling it with cheese conversations. Some humors were attempted but largely failed at capturing the dynamics; The whole love scene also felt awkward with no chemistry, more like a daughter-father relationship. Don't even mention the ridiculous scene where Donnie Yen brings her for treatment but ended up knocking everyone's teeth off. The entire movie felt like a low budget production. The editing was terrible as well and the movie felt like it was rushed with a concoction of fast and slow pace without consistency.

Overall, this was an incredibly disappointing movie and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

This was intense...

[paul_haakonsen · 8/10 · 6 May 2023]

Of course I opted to sit down and watch the 2023 Chinese action movie "Tin Lung Baat Bou" (aka "Sakra") as I had the opportunity to do so. Why? Well, because of my fascination with Asian cinema, but also because the movie was starring Donnie Yen.

The storyline in "Tin Lung Baat Bou", as written by He Ben, Chen Li, Sheng Lingzhi, Lejing Shen, Xu Yifan and Wei Zhu was quite good. I am not familiar with the novel "Demi Gods and Semi-Devils" from Louis Cha that the movie is based upon, so how true it is to the source material, I have no idea. But the storyline in the movie proved to be rather enjoyable and entertaining, which was the sole purpose of the movie. So thumbs up to all the writers for accomplishing that.

The acting was good in the movie, though I was only familiar with Donnie Yen on the cast list. I have to say that "Tin Lung Baat Bou" definitely sees Donnie Yen back in top form on the screen, and it was quite the pleasure to watch him in this movie.

The action and martial arts scenes throughout the course of the 130 minutes that the movie ran for was good. Nay, strike that, it was intense and adrenaline-packed. I have never actually witnessed such intensity in a martial arts movie as I did here from directors Ka-Wai Kam and Donnie Yen. It was amazing and really added a lot of enjoyment to the movie. Again, it was phenomenal to see Donnie Yen in top form as he brought the action to the screen here, both in front and behind the camera.

The cinematography in "Tin Lung Baat Bou" was good and dynamic. I liked the way that they moved the cameras about and added a dynamic range to the martial arts scenes.

Visually then "Tin Lung Baat Bou" was quite good. The special effects looked good and worked well in favor of the movie.

If you enjoy Wuxia martial arts, I believe the term is, then you should definitely find the time to sit down and watch "Tin Lung Baat Bou". I was genuinely entertained from start to end. And even with a play time of 130 minutes, the movie didn't feel sluggish or slow at any time.

My rating of "Tin Lung Baat Bou" lands on a well-deserved eight out of ten stars.

Unforgiveable

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 22 February 2024]

SAKRA is another labour of love from star and director Donnie Yen, and I wish he'd give up making them. This is one of those flabby, bloated wuxia-style movies that's all over the place. After a totally random back story we meet Yen's expert swordsman, a king of beggars type, who finds himself set up by unknown enemies and forced to fight for his life. The plot beats play out ridiculously here and the whole thing has a strong air of embarrassment about it. The action scenes are unsurprisingly dominated by less than effective CGI, despite which a few are quite exciting, but it all goes on forever at a slow pace which makes it feel like four hours. And the way it refuses to end is unforgiveable.

Boring, Convulated Mess.

[dtjahyadi · 5/10 · 3 February 2023]

It's an adaptation of Jian Yong's Demi God and Semi Devil, most chinese or Asian would have knew the story path, it's like the story of Arthur and Merlin... Without even any plot twist jumbled into a 30 minuted movie. The original normally spans 40-50 hours long with lots of plot twist.

And the protagonist fails to even decide whether he wants to be a kungfu practitioners or a wuxia fantasy inner strenght no hit everybody fly around

The female protagonist cant act, Donnie has a bit of charisma but lacking acting range.

Overall a convulated mess. I'd still pay to see it for the action but it's nothing more than a superhero movie.

He was written as strong but not all conquering strong.

Killing our memories

[ngxubach · 4/10 · 4 February 2023]

I don't want to go into the details of the movie. Donnie yen simply killed my entire childhood on demigods and demigods. It is true that Chinese TV series have always been annoying with adding or subtracting characters and events from novels, but this series reaches another level of destruction. Of course, the martial arts in Jin Yong's novels are hard to believe, but there is still logic involved. Anyone who reads Kim Dung's novel knows that the character can't move or fight like in the movie. The action scenes are even colder than the drama, I think they would be better if this was a movie? Or did Donnie Yen even read Jin Yong's novel?

Boring & predictable

[handyherawan · 1/10 · 21 January 2023]

With poor, corny dialogque script and with poor action stunt want to mixep up ip man and the kind of old schoold kungfu movie like taichi master in 1993 portrait by jet li, is no clarity what kind of action donnie yen want as a director. And the movie sound track mellow sentimental is not in the right place/scene and too much where's between the character just met and want to make audience feel sympathy but for me is justvexaggerate corny. Donnie yen want to make this movie like kinda avengers super heroes and DC batman super heroes, wheres one of scene is shallow and try to copy nolan batman.

Donnie Yen bck to directorial... Really next level for him... Salute.

[adrian-67511 · 10/10 · 23 January 2023]

Bravo Donnie Yen, i have waited for this type of movie for very long time, i like Jing Yong Wuxia Novel although i don't know how to read it (mandarin), i always fancy HK TVB series drama which adapt Jing Yong novel. I always wonder why no one really make it to big screen (i mean with big budget setting). Finally is Donnie made it happen, very very clever of him, credit to him. I love the movie setting, the atmosphere, scenic, choreograph, cgi, pace.... This movies really Donnie one man show, he is the producer, director & action choreograph... For the fight scene, no need to said anything cause is choreograph by him, simply the best plus the cgi really made it explosive. My salute & 2 tumb up to Donnie, hope he will continue make movies adapt Jing Yong novel.

Terrible terrible terrible effort.

[bvmjdt · 1/10 · 26 January 2023]

Donnie Yen should not direct or produce his own movies. The movie is so amateurishly shot with many corny one-liners. The whole purpose of the show seems to glorify the lead actor and has achieved it to the bemusement of the audience.

The plot is revealed in an incoherent way and sometimes you were made to wonder what has just happened? Towards the end of the show, many scenes are shown to make sense of what has just happened. A amateurish way of story telling.

The CGI in the movie only cheapen rather than enhanced a proper martial arts movie.

Apparently there is a sequel to this awfully long and painful movie to sit through.

A 1-clap (out of 10) production 👏🏻

Review comes from Singapore.

Another typical flying magic chinese movie

[YYYYYYYYYYyyYYYYYYYYYYY · 1/10 · 20 April 2023]

Don't waste your time on this.

Typical Chinese movie

• flying heroes shooting magic fireballs and casting voodoo magic, all bs

• cheesy cliche dialogues with no means of any storyline

They try to make it into epic film with this booming music and characters looking serious and all, but it's one of those type of Chinese movies where you know it's going to suck from the moment it starts.

There's like 1000 Chinese movies that are like this so it feels like I've already seen this movie 1000 times over.

Golden era of real legit movies are gone. They are just printing movies for money grabs now.

The trials of Master of the Beggar gang!

[chand-suhas · 4/10 · 23 July 2023]

Qiao Feng (Donnie Yen) is an orphan, who is raised by a couple who found him randomly at their door. He grows up to be excellent martial arts fighter, achieving higher ranks through several missions and earns the title of the Master of the Beggar gang. His identity and loyalty gets questioned, being accused of murder which forces him to quit the gang. Further, he finds out his adopted parents are murdered and he is accused of that as well. This breaks him and puts him on the path to find the true killer and on that path he will learn brutal truth about his own identity which will turn his world upside down. How does he come to terms of the new reality and fight back, forms rest of the story.

The action sequences are well done though I am someone who doesn't enjoy a Wuxia film always. The problem was with the narrative as initially the story went too fast in introducing Qiao Feng's character, right from his childhood to him being the chief of Beggar gang. Even him getting accused of murder also doesn't give enough breather to buy into the premise or this character's plight as everything happened so fast. It is only after the introducing on Azhu, the story picks the right pace, giving enough to follow the story.

The screenplay feels overstuffed but it is the predictability that bogs it down. There is no mystery behind who were the killers. The pace too gets uneven and the lead pair lacked any chemistry to sell their love story. Once again, it was the action sequences that carried the film through with the reveal of the mystery saviour in the end which somewhat helped build enough curiosity for the sequel. My rating is strictly for the action sequences and the reveal in the end. I wish the sequel will have a better sequel that presents the drama aptly.

Very disappointing

[jerry-32590 · 1/10 · 27 May 2023]

The story is a very condensed version of the novel. For people who didn't see seen the original tv series in the 80s,, or several remakes (not as good), this movie would makes no sense. Also, the character was in a trio in the original story, and this movie removed the other 2 characters and that destroyed it. This version of story is super basic and uninteresting. The worst part is Donnie Yen. He is very homely looking and can't act, and he doesn't look the part. The whole movie is about him and all other characters are played by unknown actors who couldn't act. Yes the fight scenes and cinematography are better, but they are not enough to save this movie. In fact, it ruins the memory of a great story.

Best kung fu action movie in early 2023

[mozunote · 10/10 · 25 January 2023]

There is indeed a slight drawback because you have to summarize a long story to only 2 hours, but it pays off with great action and very jarring sound, we are waiting for the sequel to tell Duanyu but my advice is not to be too similar to the story of the series so that it will add to the surprise.

There is indeed a slight drawback because you have to summarize a long story to only 2 hours, but it pays off with great action and very jarring sound, we are waiting for the sequel to tell Duanyu but my advice is not to be too similar to the story of the series so that it will add to the surprise .

For the script to be corrected and for the romance for the 2nd series maybe you will feel it because it will tell Duanyu which is more romantic in story but so as not to forget the kungfu film side, this arena is the core of wuxia films and wuxia film lovers are really waiting for the action of kung fu films with all their might. Special effects that really spoil the eyes of the audience.

Oww my.. oww my....

[mihaisilus · 2/10 · 10 June 2023]

What is this ???

After the first 15 minutes , I had to take a break to put my brain back in its place ... This is just an insult at today's modern story writing, directing, acting and special VFX editing.

It's unbelievable someone agreed to invest an amount of props and background actors for a very poor output quality.

This is a failure in any way you can imagine. I personally like Asian movies, not a big fan, but I did watched tons of high quality Asian movies, but this one must have something at the bottom, a reason or something, that made it end up a real failure.

I can't find any reason to recommend this to anyone... maybe to toddlers.

One of the worst movie I've seen of Donnie yen. Wish I read other people review before wasting my time watching this.

[gqphoto · 1/10 · 29 April 2023]

What a garbage of a movie.. There isn't much of a plot to this movie. Story line is beyond trash. Movie barely made any sense, no character development at all to any character in this movie. No idea what Donnie yen is as his character beside him being a foster child... And that girl he saved in the temple who the fak is she??? Why go the length of risking your life for someone who framed you??? It Makes no sense.

Donnie yen please stop directing movies and stick to acting. The script to this movie is horrible.

Donnie yen go back to your old movies styles, the way it was made. Those are hits and keep you on your toes Your new stuff are just quick money grabber from the people.

Your new movies suck!!

Im a huge fan of his old stuff, not his new garbage movies. I could barely finish this new movie sakra.

A Truly Awful and Frustrating Movie-One of Donnie Yen's Worst

[neilhorne-39275 · 3/10 · 31 October 2023]

I started watching this movie with the hope of just a fun action movie with Donnie Yen. It then turned into an awful drama with one of the DUMBEST subplots with a woman I've ever seen in my entire life. No spoilers, but what the movie does with this woman character later in the movie was one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. Just pure nonsensical and poorly done. I'm getting upset just thinking about it. What were the writers thinking? Apparently they weren't.

Additionally, throughout the movie, there were so many gaps in logic and so many times when the issues could have been resolved by people just talking to each other. I hate it when movies and TV shows do that--cause drama just for the sake of drama, when all that the characters have to do is explain themselves. That is this movie almost throughout the whole runtime. There are also so many things that did not make sense at all; so many times that I was asking myself, "What just happened?" They also have this really dumb trick that they like to use in this movie that is obviously taking a page from the Mission Impossible playbook by having characters wear masks that look EXACTLY like another character (and they never explain how or when the characters made these masks--at least Mission Impossible has the privilege of using advanced spy technology to supposedly create these masks, but this movie has no such luxury).

Overall, this movie took what could have been a really cheesy but still fun action movie and turned it into a sluggish and painful to watch movie. I almost stopped watching it like three different times. The movie's only redeeming quality is that it has Donnie Yen and some pretty cool action fight scenes in a few places. Everything else is awful. Just look up the fight scenes online. Trust me, save yourself from watching the horrendous drama in this "film." 3/10.

Confusion

[ruminative1 · 5/10 · 2 February 2024]

I hate this movie but I can't look away. I am so confused!! There's so much happening yet nothing at all. I'm not sure which way or where the story is moving. I'm not finished watching but I still have a few minutes left. I'm sincerely hoping by the end it will make sense somehow. Maybe there is some research I need to do or something. I saw where some reviews referenced a book or comic or series out there somewhere. I need answers because I'm lost. Outside of the confusing story, the movie is shot beautifully. The fight scenes are amazing and the SFX are great. It's not too unrealistic. The girl who keeps changing her appearance has confused me the most I believe. LOL I'm almost at the end of the movie and I'm trying to reach my character requirement. It's still upsetting me because WHAT is happening!? I would watch it again but I don't know if that would help me. I'll have to read a synopsis on Wikipedia or something. Maybe seeing it in writing will help. Lol Sheesh!

SAKRA 2023 donnie yen

[jackiechandk2 · 9/10 · 21 January 2023]

I have to say this is a great movie In terms of martial arts, the attacks are very powerful, linking each blow is worth watching, is the best swordplay of the decade.

I like it because there's no slow motion good story I hope the next episode fights maintain this speed and are longer, it's amazing.

Perhaps the brightest plus point is donnie yen's extremely honest and natural acting ability of the cast. Although there are still many roles that seem cool but are actually very bad, the main cast leaves many unforgettable impressions in the hearts of the audience. The other actors maintain a good form, round their roles and leave many happy and sad emotions for viewers.