Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Warriors of Heaven and Earth Blu-ray Movie Review

"Sometimes killing is not a crime, and not killing is."

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater July 6, 2009

We’re all familiar with Italian spaghetti westerns, and last year Japan gave us Sukiyaki Western Django, but what if the film is Chinese? A lo mein western? Director He Ping (Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker) has toyed with cowboy influences before, and in Warriors of Heaven and Earth he not only uses western set-ups and tropes, but also sets the film in China’s wild, wild west—the Gobi desert. The film is much too expansive—a nice way of saying spread thin—to be confined to just one style, however, and portions of Warriors feel like a veritable genre buffet. Is this a western? A chase flick? Wait, a castle siege? Look, there’s a mystical relic; did we suddenly step onto the set of the latest Indiana Jones? I’m a big fan of genre bending and fusion, but in its hodgepodge pilfering, Warriors of Heaven and Earth never really establishes its own identity. With a meandering script, some disappointing battle sequences, and little dramatic tension, the film sags like a week-old helium balloon. It’s still floating, sure, but it’s never going to soar.

The five horsemen of the wuxia-pocalypse.

Warriors of Heaven and Earth takes its time setting up the dual-protagonist plot. Lieutenant Li (Jiang Wen) is a conscientious soldier who refuses an order to kill innocent prisoners and becomes a fugitive in the far western reaches of China, where he ends up guarding a caravan carrying a powerful religious relic. Lai Xi (The Burmese Harp’s Kiichi Nakai) is a Japanese emissary who has lived and studied in China since he was 13. Now working at the emperor’s behest, he is given two final tasks before he can return to his homeland—to escort a general’s daughter, Wen Zhu (Wei Zhao), to the capital, and to find and kill Lieutenant Li for his treason. A third force, however, is at play. Wacky warlord Master An (Wang Queqi) is dispatched to seize the ancient relic by a Göktürk Khan (Qapagan Khan) who seeks control of western China. Lai Xi and Lieutenant Li form an alliance to guard the relic from Master An, and agree to settle their own disputes once they reach the capital. As they journey eastward along the Silk Road, they must hold off Turks and bandits while they consider what loyalty and duty really mean.

Epic films like this live and die by the sword and by their stories, and Warriors of Heaven and Earth is unfortunately found lacking in both action and script. Battle scenes are shot tightly and given the chop-chop editing treatment, so it’s frequently difficult to tell exactly what’s happening. There’s also a distinct lack of gravity to these fights that’s partially due to the relative bloodlessness, but mostly because we simply don’t care about the characters. The first half hour of the film throws new faces at us at a rapid clip, and it’s initially difficult to tell who’s who. Even after we get a grasp on their names and roles, most of the characters amount to one-note stereotypes, and it’s hard to mourn their passing when they become sword fodder. Even the two protagonists, Lai Xi and Lieutenant Li, suffer from a keen lack of development. We never get to know them beyond the most banal observations—Li is selfless and taciturn, while Xi feels the squeezing contradictions between duty and morality. It’s frequently hinted that they’ll have a confrontation at the capital, but—this is one of the film’s big letdowns—they never do. And I still haven’t figured out why Wen Zhu is in the film at all, besides to add the obligatory pretty face.

Tonally, the film is all over the map. Just when the mood gets to an appropriate epic mode, Master An pops up with his Milli Vanilli hair and molester ‘stache, playing a Chinese violin, gesticulating wildly, or holding his pinky to the wind to somehow determine that, yes, the caravan is 80 miles away. As a villain, he’s goofy and ridiculous, and it’s hard to take the film seriously when he’s prancing and preening onscreen. This would be somewhat forgivable, however, if Warriors of Heaven and Earth took a more comic tone throughout, and didn’t ask its audience, with absolute solemnity, to swallow the out-of-the-blue hocus pocus of the last act’s deus ex machina. Not nearly as moving as Crouching Tiger, lacking the aerobatic spectacle of House of Flying Daggers, and covering similar territory to Musa, Warriors of Heaven and Earth is an unfulfilling epic that offers little besides the inherent splendor of its Gobi-desert scenery.

Warriors of Heaven and Earth Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Rectifying many of the mistakes made on their largely terribly House of Flying Daggers release, Sony brings Warriors of Heaven and Earth to Blu-ray with a sharp and pleasing 1080p, MPEG-2 transfer on a 50 gig disc. The highlight of the film is Wooden Allen collaborator Zhao Fei's epic cinematography, and the transfer handles everything from the Gobi-desert yellows to dark interiors with satisfying clarity. Colors, with a few scene-specific hiccups, are strong and saturated, as are black levels, which rarely crush and give the image a decent sense of depth. Sharpness too is rarely a concern, though there are the occasional soft shots. Textures pop cleanly and small details are well defined without showing signs of edge enhancement. My quibbles, then, are few but worth noting. In the scene when Xi first encounters Li, there's a moment when the white balance of the film suddenly shifts from a cool blue to a much warmer tone. I can't be sure if this is intentional or not, but it was surprising and more than a little distracting, causing me to rewind the film several times to verify the switch. There are also two or three moments when grain pops up vividly in the otherwise noise-free film, making me think the film stock had been briefly changed or pushed a few stops in development. And I did notice a bit of wavering in the color of the sky during one wide landscape shot. Though it's not a transfer issue, the film's few uses of CGI lack subtlety and look almost unfinished. As a whole though, Warriors of Heaven and Earth's visuals are interesting enough to elevate the often- mundane story.

Warriors of Heaven and Earth Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Warriors of Heaven and Earth hits Blu-ray with, count 'em, two uncompressed PCM 5.1 tracks, one devoted to the original Mandarin and the other a less-listenable English dub. I only briefly tasted the English track, and while it seemed suitable, dubs are dubs and their artificiality always takes me out of the experience. The Mandarin mix is the way to go, and it provides Warriors of Heaven and Earth with a suitably dynamic and well-rounded sound that put all the speakers of my home theater set-up to good use. The track offers plenty of immersion; horses trot by in the rears, wind whips convincingly from back to front, and city scenes fill the sound field with well-located ambient effects. Dialogue is mostly crisp and centralized, but one character—One Eye—does have a low, muffled voice that sounds devoid of any high-end definition. The score, by Oscar-winner A. R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire), is fantastic, with deep cello stabs, treble- heavy horns, and lots of mid-range clarity. Along with typical symphonic elements, Rahman incorporates many indigenous instruments like the erhu, duduk, and taiko drum. While much of the film goes for fairly realistic audio, battle sounds seem occasionally stylized, with much of the ambience dropping out while swords clash and rocket-propelled arrows whiz anachronistically through the air.

Warriors of Heaven and Earth Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Making of Warriors of Heaven and Earth (SD, 25:13)

Narrated in English, this behind-the-scenes documentary gives a brief but relatively engaging look at Warriors' arduous filming process. We get interviews with the director and key cast members, along with a location-by-location look at the sets and landscapes used in the film. The most interesting bits concern the wire-fu fight choreography and filming from a hot air balloon. PETA-supporters beware, however, as the crew did sacrifice an animal before filming commenced, a ritual that is quickly, though inexplicitly shown.

Music Video: "Warriors of Peace" by Jolin Tsai (SD, 4:34)

This is a typical movie tie-in music video, interspersed with images from the film, and the song is expectedly not so hot. No English subtitles are included.

Warriors of Heaven and Earth Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Warriors of Heaven and Earth is derivative and unfocused, but wuxia geeks—I'm one too— and fans of Chinese cinema in general may want to give this one a shot, if only for the stunning, on-location visuals. With a moderately entertaining story and a solid AV lineup, I'd say it's worth a rental.