It sure is great that this is a long weekend. I seem to be a whole friggin' day behind. Saturday I was trying to clean my hard drive. I have a lot of files that had been accumulating for a good while. I needed to burn some cd's and dvd's to archive those files. The guys at work were telling me I just needed to get a second hard drive. You can get a terribite for about $120. I'd rather spend that money on some LEGO or snacks. Keeping things off your hard drive is a good thing. While I was doing the burning I couldn't use my pc so I watched some movies with subtitles that Joe had given me the day before. Might as well get them watched as not and then they can go back to Joe. All four movies were from Hong Kong and are recent films that are set in the past. All are about war. When I asked Joe what they were like, he just said, war is bad. Or something like that.
First up Three Kingdoms - Ressurection of the Dragon. It's a 2008 movie with Andy Lau and Sammo Hung that is based on a Chinese novel called Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It's set somewhere between 160 and 280 AD. There is a lot of fighting and stabbing as the three kingdom's fight it out for control of China. The country would be united in 280 AD under the Jin Dynasty. Sammo is the narrator. He's playing a fictional soldier who befriends Andy Lau. Andy is playing a real character who was fictionalized for the novel and more so for the movie. 
Maggie Q plays the daughter of a general from one of the three kingdom's. She vows revenge for something Andy did. It's a sort of complicated story with quite a few characters. There's a longer review and synopsis of the story at this site. The story covers a lot of ground as the people get older. Years pass and Andy and the daughter finally have it out. The action is that blury jumpy quick cut stuff that doesn't show much of anything to the audience. Andy's character isn't that interesting or likeable. Not a movie that I would want to watch too soon again, what with war being bad and all. I am curious about John Woo's 4 hour movie, in 2 parts, that deals with the Red Cliff battle that was so important, The second part should be coming out soon on dvd. Woo hasn't made much after Windtalkers. Another movie about the horrors of model warfare and one I don't much want to watch again. It wasn't well recieved and there's a good reason for that. He did some video game work and then the two part Red Cliff.
Second was The Warlords, a 2007 movie set in the 1860's, with Jet Li, Andy Lau and Takishi Kaneshiro. They are three men bound to a promise. Never a good idea. Jet is a general. He's the only survivor of a battle, the end of which starts the movie. He falls in with some bandits while he's recovering. They live by stealing food from the rebels. When he recovers Jet goes with the gang and they rob a rebel convoy. The Quin army comes looking for the food, which had been stolen from them, and take it back. Jet rounds up the bandits and convinces them to join the army to gain a more stable life for their families. Those that don't die in battle I guess. Maybe there's a good pension for the widows. Or a swift death. The Quin army welcomes Jet back somewhat reluctantly. He proves to be a good fighter and there in lies the rub. He's too ambitious and popular. The Quin Lords with hold their love. And food. And everything else an invading army needs. The siege of Suzhou turns bad and the men, both inside and outside of the city, are staving as the fight drags on for a year. Andy convinces the leader of the city to surrender. Everything gets worse when the promise Andy made to the captured army isn't kept and the Suzhou soldiers are slaughtered. That causes a rift which only widens. Eventually Andy is too far off the beam to live. The Empress orders the death of Jet. He's become far too much of a problem. There's better fighting in this movie and some of the battle scenes aren't too bad. Trailer here. Looks pretty good, huh. The story is full of sadness and betrayal. Not one wins even after they succeed in battle. I usually like these movies the first time but unless they are more upbeat I just don't want to see them too often. The acting is good and the action scenes are gritty and fairly entertaining. There's just too much melodrama for me. People liked the movie and it won some awards. It deserved it as a good reminder that war is bad.
By now it's getting to be mid afternoon on saturday and I have burned some discs and sorted some lego. Back to the tv and my third movie. Seven Swords is not on a dvd. It's on a vcd. Two CD's in a double jewel case with nice color pictures and words all in Chinese. Joe gets some of these movies from Asian video stores on the internet. I haven't bought any in a while. For some reason they still sell a lot of this format in Asia. A vcd is usually half or less than the dvd. At least on the internet. I can't imagine how cheap they are in the streets of Hong Kong. A dollar? I wouldn't be surprised. The quality isn't as good as the dvd. Seven Swords is a 2005 movie set in the 1600's. Tsui Hark is the director. He's made some good films since he started in the mid 80's. Always something cooking with that guy. I have several favorites like Peking Opera Blues, the first two of the One Upon a Time In China series, and Knock Off to put you in the right direction. He also writes films and he's produced some of the very best of the Hong Kong output. Some bad guys are going to attack a village. The Quin Lords have decreed no martial arts. The bad guys are the enforcers of the law and they get so much a head for every head of a martial artist they bring in. Lucrative business, especially when the whole town does martial arts. Some martial arts guys go ask an older martial arts guy what to do and he gives them seven swords and some advice. They go off to save the people of the martial arts village next on the chopping block. There's lots of sound and fury in the fights. You might not know what's going on all the time but there's hardly any time to think about that before something distracts the mind. There's some melodrama and some dumb stuff. A little more lighthearted than the previous two films. The good guys are the winners and the bad guys are crushed like the bugs that they are. I enjoyed the movie mostly but it isn't going to be high on the top of my list to buy what with the high cost of war. That can't be good.
I didn't like The Empress and the Warriors as much as Seven Swords. Donnie Yen and Leon Lai star in this 2008 film. A young woman has to take over the kingdom when her father dies. There's a war going on. She's betrayed, escapes hurt, and is saved by Leon Lai who lives in the wood. Donnie Yen, who lives in the city, is the other good guy. He keeps things going in the kingdom until the princess is rescued. There's some more stuff but I was tired of the movie before the end. Mostly melodrama and less action than I like. War is boring at times. I was still burning discs and while that was going on I was dismantling the huge rock from The Shack on the Rock. It's a LEGO scene I did. I was ok with it but it wasn't a keeper. I have some pictures and memories. Digital and faulty. Isn't that the modern world for ya. The rock weighed 3 pounds. I thought it would be more. Sure was a lot of parts in there. I sure overbuilt that. Mind you I could stand on that rock. Now I got lots of light grey pieces to add to my stock. Now it's bedtime sunday and I still haven't blogged about the SF movies that I watched today. Maybe tomorrow. Monday holiday. Who doesn't like that?
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