Movie review of The Warlords

The Warlords - 6.5/10
Directed by Peter Chan

Plot Summary
3 men who become blood brothers (by doing a weird ritual). The story unfolds about them going through a series of changes like war, politics and love which is a deadly concoction in my opinion. Based on the Qing Dynasty story called "Assassination of ma".

Review
Acting is pretty bad.
Andy lau...no matter how hardworking this fella is, he is just not an actor. Whenever he shouts or talks in an angry voice, it sounds ridiculous and laughable. But this is definitely one of his better performances as an actor.
Takeshi kaneshiro...this fucker simply cannot make it. The reason why he is casted in this movie is just eyecandy for chicks.
Jet li..he is horrible when he acts as a good guy but when he becomes evil, he's awesome.
And thats what happens in this movie, he has very good scenes and bad scenes just based on his emotions for each particular scene. Cinematography is good. The battle scenes are beautiful and sometimes very breath taking. I love the gore and the kill scenes are fucking fantastic. The fight choreography alone is worth the money. Editing on the other hand is a fucking letdown for a big budget movie. I do not understand why the director never emphasized on the editing. The cuts are so obvious...very amateur.
All in all I still feel it's a good movie despite it being a bit too draggy. Worth watching on a weekend.

Recommended movies by the director
He's a man, She's a woman or Perhaps love
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Here is another review written by Jos

The Warlords - 4.5/10

This movie was a complete letdown.Don't believe the hype and never mind the trailer that looked pretty good.As far as I am concerned, there are no epic battle sequences, even the atrocity that was Troy had better battle action sequences. The only really good action part is a bandit raid on the army in little valley and that too was because Jet Li pulled off some cool moves which was what I wanted to see, not him burying his face in a fucking cloth and sobbing, thats right, the fucker is crying in this movie along with his 2 other blood brothers at various points in the movie. In fact it was the heroine who didn't cry, which is no wonder cause she is after all, banging two of the blood brothers.

A little side fact, the movie actually had like 2 directors it seem cause the main director admits to not being able to direct action sequences and so got another guy so he could concentrate on the drama bits for which he is supposedly famous for....

Which is true cause this movie was so drama that it might actually give Tamil movies a run for its money. I actually dozed off in the theatre and found I didn't miss a beat, thats how freaking draggy this is..plot wise, it raises a serious question in relation to the state and oneself and the roles we play in order to achieve peace however it fails to or rather very weakly addresses the issues.

Of course the fact that the acting is so bad didn't help, the fact that we have a character repeating a line numerous time and we know he is not retarded is a clear indication.I mean even the audience was actually laughing and it wasn't even suppose to be a funny bit, it was dead serious.

Weird blood brother ceremonies, sobbing action heroes, bad acting action heroes, weird assassinations. Tons of pau being thrown around. Along with some really weird edits, I really regret forking out money to watch this movie. I would wait for it to come to dvd which you would borrow from a friend or our local library.Wait for it to be featured on TV during CNY or something. Don't even bother wasting bandwidth to download it.

Recommended movies by the director:
Never watch another movie from this director unless you're a whiny punk ass bitch.