6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 3.8 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.3 |
In the tradition of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero, Warriors of Heaven and Earth weaves a thread of battle, comradeship and honor. Set in the ferocious Gobi Desert, the story follows Lieutenant Li (Jiang Wen) and Japanese emissary Lai Xi (Nakai Kiichi), both first-class warriors and master swordsmen. After decades of service to the Chinese Emperor, Lai Xi longs to return to Japan, but is instead sent to the west to chase wanted criminals. His only passport back to Japan is to capture and execute Lieutenant Li, a renegade soldier wanted for leading a violent mutiny when he refused orders to kill female and child prisoners. Li and Lai Xi battle, but finally agree to delay their final personal fight until the caravan carrying a Buddhist monk is brought to safety. The monk, however, is carrying a sacred and powerful pagoda that attracts the attention of the region's ruthless overlord, Master An (Wang Xueqi). Lai Xi and Lt. Li, accompanied by Li's former posse of soldiers, who have forsaken their peaceful new lives to return to his side, must face the cruelty of the desert, the region's barbaric bandits and the brutality of the overlord's men before they can finally faceone another.
Starring: Kiichi Nakai, Wei Zhao, Hasi Bagen, Wen Jiang, Xueqi WangAction | 100% |
Foreign | 67% |
History | 38% |
Adventure | 31% |
Fantasy | 16% |
Drama | 3% |
Video codec: MPEG-2
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Mandarin: LPCM 5.1
Mandarin: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: LPCM 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
English, English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Czech, Dutch, Greek, Hindi, Polish, Turkish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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2011
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Director's Cut
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