Change Your Image
s0m3n4m3
Reviews
Wu ji (2005)
A fairy tale in its essence. Perhaps flawed, yet nonetheless entertaining.
Chen Kaige is no stranger to epics, and he has shown he knows how to handle it. In this movie though, the director perhaps stretched his material little too much to make a movie that it was not meant to be. The movie's plot is burdened by its extraneousness, and its characters are not grounded properly to reach the depth this movies seems to want reach. However, the movie still is entertaining if viewed with lighter heart to ignore its superfluous elements.
The main flaw of the movie lies in its directions. The heart of the story reads more as a fairytale, rather than a grand storyline that supplements complex characters that made his previous two epics "Farewell My Concubine" and "The Emperor and the Assassin" successes. Even amidst of their grand story lines of the aforementioned movies, the driving engines for those movies were the Dostoevskian depth his characters display in the stories. In this movie though, the director falls a bit short on both ends, and the reason seems to be the director's trying bit to much with what was given. The movie might have been more successful as a straightforward fairytale, yet the movie is burdened by extraneous story lines that tries to give extra depths with unsuccessful results. The 10+ minutes preview of the movie hinted for something extravagant, an epic set in almost Peter Greenwayesque background, yet the movie fails to live up to what it seems to want to be.
The movie, with all its flaws, still offers value. The main story still has some power to enchant, especially viewed as a fairytale. The cinematography, as usual for Chen Kaige affair, can be breathtaking at times. The acting throughout the movie is solid. The movie is weighed down by its own expectations, but underneath it, the movie is still entertaining at its core.