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Director: Peter Chan. Review by Tim Irwin
Imagine an historical war/action epic film, starring Jet Li, Andy Lau, and Takeshi Kaneshiro. Now think of how awesome it would be if it was well made and coherent. Throw in an extra dose of tragedy, and you have /The Warlords/. It's 1861, and a bedraggled Jet Li pulls himself out from underneath a sea of bodies. He's the sole survivor of the
army he was commanding, but now he walks like a dead man. He stumbles down a road filled with refugees fleeing the fighting of the civil war, in which Teiping rebels are trying to defeat the Ching Dynasty. A woman stops to help him and cares for him through the night. The next day he gets caught up with a band of thieves and travels back to their
village. This is an epic, so to avoid taking an hour to describe the plot I'll be brief. Pretty soon he makes a blood brother pact with the two leaders of the village and they and the bandit gang join the regular army to fight the rebels. As they get closer to the primary rebel city, the power and authority that comes with their success causes problems within the triumvirate. This leads to several dramatic scenes that make the film worthy of being called a tragedy.
If one goes in expecting a full tilt action movie, you will be disappointed. There is a lot more going on here. And, though the scope is epic the runtime doesn't exceed two hours (at least in the international version that I watched). Amazingly enough, the film holds together quite successfully while juggling the massive plot. One reason, perhaps,
is that the number of primary characters is kept to a minimum. There are enough to identify with each one and understand their personalities, but this isn't an ensemble film. The action reminded me of Musa in a lot of ways. It's dusty and dirty in a lot of the landscapes and battlefields and the fight scenes are bloody and violent. More than
one limb gets lopped off, though never in an exploitative or sensational way. In fact, some of the more sombre violent scenes are left to the imagination in a rare (and welcome) instance of restraint in the genre. But you will enjoy the action.
The first half of the film, in particular, showcases massive battles. Jet Li is in wonderful form, though he's a bit older and not as lean as he was in the days of Fong Sai Yuk. Some of the scenes are reminiscent of recent American war movies, though not as sappy. It's gritty, dirty, bloody, and brutal. As the army of former thieves gets closer to it’s goal, the political drama steps up. The empress plays a small but vital role, but it's really the three leaders that control the various armies under their collective command. They worry that General Pang (Li) will need to be dispatched and plot ways to disrupt the three brothers from the inside. This is where the tragedy steps up, as certain characters have difficult choices to make, often in the pursuit of an eventual good or peace after the war. The amazing thing is how relevant and interesting the drama is. One might think that after the action fades to the background that the film would fall apart. Fortunately, this isn't the case here.
Each character retains their uniqueness: General Pang has righteous goals but worries about what he needs to do to reach them. Andy Lau's Er-Hu is tormented by some of the decisions Pang makes, while Takeshi Kaneshiro's Zhang realizes the altruism in Pang's actions. I would strongly recommend catching this on the big screen if possible. The action and scale deserves to be seen as large as possible to take in the strong camera work and atmospheric battle scenes. Basically, come for the stars and the promise of action, and stay for the intriguing drama and tragedy. It's not a perfect film, but it holds together and is engaging enough to be well worth watching. Some of the later battles are given short thrift, I assume in the interest of keeping the film short, but I wouldn't have minded watching a few extra action sequences. All in all, it's a great example of a war epic done with heart and aplomb. |
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