The young director Raymond Lee (Rebel from China) deserves some credit for daring to remake one of the great King Hu's most impressive movies. The 1967 original looked like a vintage Technicolor Western, and it had more sweep and panache than any other movie of its kind. Filming in Taiwan, Hu relished the possibilities offered by a shrewdly limited situation. The plots of the two versions are identical: Among the guests at a remote inn in dusty Northern China are representatives of the eunuch-controlled secret police that secretly runs the imperial Ming government, and a group of staunch rebels who have sworn to overthrow them. The story line could be described as an excuse for the sword fights, between as many combinations of antagonists as possible. But when the result was so intoxicating, who could complain? In 1992 Lee updated the basic conception with some winking sexual innuendo and snagged an all-star cast: Maggie Cheung Man-yuk (Song of the Exile), Tony Leung Kar-fei (The Lover), and Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia (Peking Opera Blues). But his staging of action feels mechanical, and the movie never comes to life. You may find yourself nodding out over the endless whirlwind swordplay. --David Chute
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: Fun flick but poor quality DVD Comment: For a movie that is relatively new (1992), and for $17.99, I certainly expected the quality to be right up there with Crouching Tiger or Flying Daggers. Disappointed! I do have a number of older - seventies - Chinese movies on DVD that are much worse, mind you, but those older movies were usually less than ten dollars, often closer to five.
The movie itself probably warrants four stars, but again, the price for this "bootleg" quality DVD is about double what it should be. Customer Rating: Summary: 3.5, but great music, great acting, and an ending that will never be forgotten boosts it up to a 4. Comment: Now I can't comment on the original, but king hu definitely did not make movies like this. Now if you like movies like the swordsman series than you will probably dig this. I thought that this movie was a little less than action packed. But that was just because the story was a little less than boring, I really needed more action. That is not to say that the acting was not good, just storywise it was very weak. The action though actually features pretty good swordfights throughout. And in one fight we get the confirmation that brigitte's skin looks very good. I would have liked to see more but it is just as good dreaming of her. I can easily imagine what she looks like, she has... Ok, well the reason most people will buy this is for donnie yen, but I bought it for briggite lin and I ended up getting a little more than I expected. Now the political overtones that ric myers speaks about all throughout the commentary I think is true. I don't know if a lot of the things he is suggesting are true or false, but the movie is at least very different in this way. We have all these swordmasters, but we don't have like this one guy who is the master. Well I guess we do, but he doesn't show up until the very end and the part where I saw political meaning is where the whole of them could do nothing to him but it took teamwork and luck to win. Don't really mean to give anything away but I definitely think there is something to be read into their. And man oh man donnie would have made a great bad guy if he did it more than like twice. So all in all still a pretty good film with stuff at the end that may cause seizures.
And of course elvis tsui shows up, what chinese movie is he not in? You mat know him as the guy with the mansion in butterfly sword and chinese torture chamber story, but I am 99.9% sure that this is KAM KANG. There is a reason he always seems like a really good actor, cause he is. he is not just seasoned, he can seriously act. You may remember kam kang from Master of the flying guillotine, he was the master. Now if anyone wants to prove me wrong then bring it cause I haev done my research. But this guy has literally appeared in something like 200-300 movies.
Now the picture for this film is very good. It is a tai seng release so there are scratches. We are also getting 15 more minutes and you always gotta love that. The sound quality is slightly better than average, and NO 5.1 sound option. The trailers are the same old. But the filmographies are very professionally presented. VERY ggod short biographies and limited filmography, but VERY good for a usual throw away special feature. The commentary is ok and has some good info on the stars and briefly discusses king hu's original. He talks about tsui hark being great but my opinion is he is far from that. He has another 10 or so great films to make before he can be considered great. It's true that he has worked on many movies, but his stuff is unique and I respect him for that. But it is not unique enough of the time and he has made some of the worst movies ever so it goes both ways. And ric myers does make a rare really good point on how this film was filmed silently. 99% of chinese action movies are filmed silently, even TODAY it is still being done. Hong Kong knows how to make movies cheaper than we do and they sacrifice a lot. Our movies get brought overseas sometimes but we don't hear about it. Of course crouching, daggers, and hero came over but they were more expensive and more widely known. This movie is a cheapo just like all the rest except it manages to do better than most. When they make these, they make it for kong kong, but it is also going to be distibuteed in lik ea hundred other countries.
So I would tell you to watch this for the 2 hotass women and the end fight, but more for b lin in particular. And IT IS R-rated for a reason. Enjoy. Customer Rating: Summary: One of the greatest WuXia films Comment: As a Chinese who has watched a lot of martial arts movies I can tell you this is a true classic! If you like the great HK actions movies like A Better Tomorrow, Die Hard, Once Upon a Time in China you will love it. It's better than Crouching Tiger, and it's much much better than trashes like Hero, Heros of Heaven and Earth, House of Flying Daggers, etc. Customer Rating: Summary: All-Star Disappointment Comment: Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung and Donnie Yen are amazing. I was excited to see a movie that combined their talents, but "Dragon Inn" was a big disappointment. The plot was too absurd for my liking, the characters felt a little two-dimensional and the fight scenes were only a fraction of what they could have been. However, some people really like this movie a lot. My recommendation would be to rent it first. Customer Rating: Summary: The Ending makes the movie Comment: I would've given this a 3 but I loved the last scene! I still smile when I think of it. Its not bad overall and will keep your interest.
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