Dang kou feng yun

I enjoyed watching this movie. I gave it only 9 stars because I felt that the relationships between the characters, husband-wife, friendships between soldiers and army men (generals, officers etc) were lacking substance. There is a lot of room for improvement regarding these connections between the characters but the movie compensate this fact with good fighting scenes and war strategies. Overall you will not be disappointed if you watch this movie because it is what it said it would be: historical war movie from 1575 China.

My preference is for period pieces over modern day settings (especialy not the Hong Kong cop thrillers). I watched this a day after rewatching the "Seven Samuri" and was inrtigued by the number of blunderblusses available given there were only three in 7 Samuri (set some decades later). Also I learned this must have taken place in the pre-isolationist period of Japan as they were trying to take over coastal China through pirate cloaking. I enjoyed the many subplots: ronin trying to be samuri, peasants trying to be soldiers but especially the singlemindedness of General Qi's wife.

The film's cinematography (composition, colour, camera movement) was reminiscent of Kagemusha, the Shadow Warrior. The Japanese and Chinese were given a balance of presentation and at times I was not sure who to root for. Intrigues at the Chinese court placed the story line at another level. The Japanese general kept to the lie that he was no more than a pirate. An honourable undertaking in capturing this little known period (to Westerners at least) with elegance, elan and enthralling story telling.

Wow, this was one hell of a ride! If you like martial arts and warfare, you NEED to watch this movie! The epic sword fighting scenes in particular, especially the final fight, are a must watch! None of that flying nonsense you get in Hero or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon either, this is (very) fast, gritty, and realistic sword fighting! And you get LOTS of it! There are also several intense and mesmerising scenes of warfare, and there's lots of bloody violence, so you better be ready for that. There is some great cinematography as well. It doesn't have the same kind of high caliber dramatic story or acting as movies like Red Cliff (although these are still good), and there isn't as much fancy strategy as in some other good warfare movies (but it still has a fair amount of it), but the action is top tier! Personally I found this to be one of the most satisfying movies I've watched all year, after having watched tons and tons of mediocre or disappointing movies both from The West and The East this year (including many I had high hopes for...). So if you like warfare and warfare strategy, martial arts, and especially sword fighting, or all of the above, then definitely watch this as soon as you can!

It is a great movie, accurately telling the history between Japan and China in Ming dynasty. I especially love the 1-1 fight scene of General Qi and Commander Kumasawa and the languages were spoken in both Mandarin and Japanese. It also showed the characters of Chinese and Japanese. If you know nothing about the history, you might get bored, but you will enjoy this movie very much if you know a little bit of the story.

I watched this on Netflix, and their discription of the film was something along the lines of "a maverick leader and a clever young general take on the Japanese pirates amid bureaucratic intrigue in Ming Dynasty China". In reality, the film is more "a clever young general takes on Japanese pirates" with bureaucratic intrigue in Ming Dynasty China as a mere backdrop. The film does alllude to bureaucratic politics in the first half of the film, but it is left to the wayside into the second half with no mention of it at the conclusion of the story. We're sort of left hanging about the characters who appeared in the first half that were involved in the politics of the Ming Dynasty.

The second half of the film focuses on two battles - and that's fine. However with a fairly crowded cast, some of the characters' death are left me feeling unempathetic. Had the film focused on developing these certain characters more in the first half of the film, it would've been more impactful. We simply didn't get time to grow attached to the characters that die.

Personally, I think the movie would've been better if it just focused on the general chasing the pirates and with very light sprinkles of his maverick leader trying to get him the funds for his army. Then the first half of the film could focus on the general training his troops, and the second half can be the battles. The movie also gets bogged down with comedic scenes between the General and his wife. I found it touching and funny, but it did make me stop and wonder when the battles were going to happen, this film is around the 2hr mark.

However, these scenes were all to humanise the General and his wife, who plays an integral part in one of the battles later on in the film. She ticks the standard "badass waifu" that we all wish had our backs, and the actress does a pretty good job of convincing me that she's exhaustedly and desperately hacking away at Japanese soldiers.

Now it would be jarring to see a 5ft6 petite woman carving her way through katanna wielding troops, but the film does it in a way that she manages to get the jump on them in the heat of battle, rather than going toe to toe with countless men. And of course, a few people have to bail her out in battle - she's not a Mary Sue (which is to be expected because Asian cinema knows how to write strong yet not overpowered female characters) So point in favour to the creative minds behind that.

Next up, I appreciate how the film takes the time to develop the Japanese characters, from the wise leader, to the young and honourable samurai, and the dishonourable ronins. The film makes a clear distinction that the ronin are the ones doing the messy work, and are barbaric in their behaviour much to the disgust of their samurai leaders. The samurai aren't the cliche evil Japanese characters we see so much in Chinese film, which is a nice change of pace for once. "Ip Man" was a bit too heavy handed on the anti-Japanese sentiment.

Finally we have the action. It's good, no shaky cam and well choreographed scenes make it worth the wait. It's no "Red Cliff", but it is more than adequate and not as fantastical as other similar epics such as "The Curse of the Golden Flower" - which is a good thing.

Overall, I enjoyed the film and the battle scenes definitely made up for the wait.