An Empress and the Warriors Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

An Empress and the Warriors Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov March 30, 2009

Ching Siu-Tung’s "An Empress and the Warriors" (2008) tells a sumptuous story about a young woman faced with a difficult dilemma – to become an Empress and defend her people from their enemies, foreign and domestic, or leave her Kingdom and live with the man she loves. Clocking in at a little over ninety minutes, the film has been impressively lensed but ultimately lacks the depth and charisma that made other similarly themed films international hits. The Blu-ray disc, courtesy of UK-based distributors Showbox, is Region-Free.

General Muyong Xuehu

The great Chinese Kingdoms are at war. The leader of the Yan Kingdom has been critically wounded. Realizing that he has little time left, he announces that general Muyong Xuehu (Donnie Yen, Dragon Tiger Gate) will be his successor. His nephew, Wu Ba (Guo Xiaodong, The Warlords), however, is deeply disappointed with the decision; filled with anger, Wu Ba kills his uncle.

In the meantime, the Zao Kingdom is defeated and Muyong Xuenhu is declared leader of the Yan Kingdom. Realizing that Wu Ba and his followers would never follow his orders, Muyong Xuenhu steps down and announces that the King’s daughter, Yan Feier (Kelly Chen, Infernal Affairs), will be the new leader. Wu Ba is forced to accept Muyong Xuenhu’s decision.

While the young Empress trains to become a formidable warrior, Wu Ba hires a group of assassins to kill her. They manage to track her down and wound her, but an ex-Moon Warrior (Leon Lai, The Seven Swords), the last of its kind, saves her life and the two fall in love. The Empress gives the throne back to Muyong Xuenhu, who also has feelings for her, and urges him to stop the bloody wars between the rivaling kingdoms.

I have to assume that prior to completing An Empress and the Warriors veteran Chinese director Ching Siu-Tung took a good look at Peter Chan’s The Warlords (2007) since his film replicates a great deal of the raw violence that separated The Warlords from the sea of period pictures the Chinese Film Industry has been mass producing as of late. It also has a top martial arts actor (Donnie Yen) who looks as impressive during the long battle scenes as does the man (Jet Li) Peter Chan bet on.

I am also fairly confident that Ching Siu-Tung studied another film – Zhang Yimou’s House of Flying Daggers (2004). Once Yan Feier is saved by the Moon Warrior, An Empress and the Warriors quickly switches into a romantic mode that follows a well known route.

Yet, neither the raw action nor the moving romance are enough to mask the fact that the script for An Empress and the Warriors wasn't suitable for the type of film Ching Siu-Tung wanted to shoot. There are key elements from the epic puzzle that are simply missing.

Technically, however, An Empress and the Warriors is far from being a disappointing film. There are a number of exceptionally well shot battle scenes in it that rival the intensity and scope of the epic clashes seen in other similarly themed Asian films. Furthermore, the emphasis on detail is very impressive and one could easily tell that a lot of efforts must have been put into making sure that the period element in An Empress and the Warriors is as effective as possible.

An Empress and the Warriors Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.30:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Ching Siu-Tung's An Empress and the Warriors arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Showbox.

At times, the transfer Showbox have provided for this fairly recent film looks absolutely gorgeous – contrast is very pleasing, clarity exceptional and detail fantastic. Particularly during some of the massive battle scenes, one would be pleased to see how vivid and strikingly clear everything looks. Yet, there are also large portions of An Empress and the Warriors that reveal a heavily compressed look; this is something that those of you with large-size screens will probably find fairly distracting. On screens smaller than 50 inch, however, what I described above will most likely not be an issue of concern. This being said, I did spot a bit of edge-enhancement that popped up here and there as well. On a positive side, the actual print is notably healthy – there aren't any, scratches, debris, or stains. Overall, the basics for this 1080p transfer are certainly intact, and if not for the processing that I mentioned above, An Empress and the Warriors could have been a disc to show off. (Note: Even though the Blu-ray disc is marketed as Region-B, it is in fact Region-Free. Therefore, you will be able to play it on your PS3 or SA regardless of your geographical location).

An Empress and the Warriors Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two audio tracks on this Blu-ray disc: Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1 and Cantonese Dolby Digital 2.0 (both tracks include portions of Mandarin). Well, it is a bit disappointing to see again that Showbox have not been able to secure a loseless track of some sort for their Blu-ray release. It could have been great if they would have ported at least one of the three loseless tracks -- Cantonese PCM 7.1, Cantonese DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 and Mandarin PCM 5.1 -- available on the Hong Kong Blu-ray release of An Empress and the Warriors but, as noted above, the most elaborate track on this disc is Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1. This being said, the Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1 track certainly does as much as it could to enhance the aggressive audio the film boasts. During the massive battle scenes the bass is loud and quite punchy, the surround activity rather strong and the dialog very easy to follow. In addition, there are absolutely no pops, cracks, or hissings that I was able to detect. Nonetheless, I could not stop thinking about how much better this film would have sounded if there was some sort of a loseless track to compliment it. As it is, this is simply a very good Blu-ray disc, not an excellent one. For the record, Showbox have provided optional white English subtitles that appear inside the image frame.

An Empress and the Warriors Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Aside from a standard Making-Of featurette (offered in standard-def PAL) following the production history of An Empress and the Warriors, the original theatrical trailer for the film (offered in 1080p) and trailer for Chocolate, Guard Post and Monkey Magic, there is nothing else to be found on this Blu-ray disc.

An Empress and the Warriors Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Visually impressive but somewhat predictable genre picture, starring top martial arts guru Donnie Yen, An Empress and the Warriors arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of UK-based distributors Showbox. I personally enjoyed the film quite a bit – it is lavishly produced and pleasingly unpretentious. This being said, the actual Blu-ray disc is rather underwhelming. Let's hope that in the future Showbox will begin adding loseless tracks on their discs.