Double World

An oft trod tale of gallantry and heroism - this time given an Oriental scenario as "Dong YiLong" (Henry Lau) and his gang of compatriots compete against nine other warriors in the ultimate, deadly, contest of skill and strategy organised by a neighbouring warlord with an agenda of his own. Actually, as fantasy adventure films go, it is pretty complete: handsome hero, mythical beasties; sword fights; martial arts before a predictable ending. Don't expect anything at all sophisticated here: the effects are straight out of a video game and the dialogue is minimalist but the action scenes redeem it somewhat, and for 2 hours of mindless fun you could do a heck of a lot worse.

A world of warriors, political intrigue, monsters and gigantic scorpions (no, this is not "Clash of the Titans"), "Double World", based on a video game (some aspects of which can be reflected in the movie), is a very entertaining, even if simplistic, affair, a typical, heroes meet, heroes fight the bad ones, but with surprising depth for this kind of movies. The characters, the strong one, the cheerful one, the 'rising-from-the-bottom' one, etc., etc., are charicatures, but they are very well done charicatures and it is a treat to spend the lenght of the movie with them. And the plot... well, whatever you want to call it, is silly as they come, but it is not boring, a hypermusculated hero quest. It all becomes a little bit bloated, but never overstays its welcome. Worth trying.

Growing up with a chinese friend, I watched a decent amount of chinese movies, so this movie took me back to my youth. There's something very appealing in this movie: beautiful costumes, a light comedic undertone, good fighting choreography and some well placed, almost horrorstyle, violence. It's pretty rough to be honest. The story is fairly simple, the script makes some sudden jumps, but this isn't what makes or breaks the movie. It's a fantasy tale of a becoming hero and his friends who are met along the heroes journey. Very entertaining to watch and I rated this just a 7, because of the poorly written script. But maybe chinese doesn't translate itself well to english subs.

I'm not used to chinese movies. I saw this and thought should give it a try. At first the plot seems basic, unaware of the rpg background of the movie. Even though it has a few plot wholes or inconsistencies, it is full of surprises. The CGI and the fighting scenes do make up for it. Recommended

It's not a perfect film at all and there are lots of moments that'll have you scratching your head and sometimes the acting can be a bit weird. That being said, it's very entertaining.

There are plenty of well choreographed, cool looking fights, a few plot twists that you might not see coming and the villain's plot isn't completely ridiculous. He's been planning this all for years and he almost gets away with it too.

All in all a good film to watch on a Saturday night for fans of kung Fu and fantasy.