User reviews

This film will be well remembered, not for its ink paint style of cinematography, but for its characters, dialogue and ensemble performance. Deng Chao, who plays both the Shadow and the Commander at a time and can be often seen in the same frame with the help of marvellous visual effects, deserves all the attention and compliments for his commitment to acting. Didn't expect the adapted-from-historical-events drama turns out to be an action thriller ending with heavy blood stains, and the film almost reminded me of Feng Xiao-Gang's "The Banquet" when the ending credits rolled. But then, when I thought of the body moves of the Shadow, the Commander and his wife among Yin and Yang in the fight-practicing scene, and those tender moments between Shadow and his love, and their passion covered or burned through eye contact and physical distance in the light and the dark, I realised this is a Zhang Yimou film. The craftsmanship is simply for storytelling!

Shadow is a visually-stunning film. The plot was only modestly-interesting, but the breathtaking visuals and excellent use of music kept every moment of this film engaging. The action scenes are innovative. While technically a color film, most of the film looks black and white, except for the blood. Filming in the constant rain must have been unpleasant, but it contributes greatly the the amazing visual experience.

I just ended up seeing this movie without any expectations, The movie was great, The cinematography was well done , visually stunning and properly executed, The movie was a bit lengthy but slowly picked up the pace, definitely recommended...

Beautiful. The photography , the craft of tension, the acting, , at the level of fight scenes- real spectacular, admirable made. And the impression of ink painting is one of its high gifts. Another virtues - the resurrection of memories about Kurasawa universe, few drops of Shakespeare tragedies and the image of "shadow". A beautiful film, a decent- in large measure - tale and the feel to discover the cold water of a familiar lake.

Aesthetically, this is one of the most artful films I've ever seen. Each shot is gorgeously crafted; the costumes, the set pieces, the battle sequences.

If only the plot hadn't worn away at the positives. One or two ending twists is fine, but they shoved in so many redirections at the end, trying desperately to outmaneuver the audience, that the film devolves into indiscernible ridiculousness. I had high hopes for this one, and it could have lived up to them given the artful qualities, but it unfortunately fell short.

Still worth a watch, but don't expect a storytelling masterpiece.

I am a huge fan of the director "hero" and "House of flying daggers" are masterpieces in my book. His characters are usually honorable and the scenes are nothing short of a visual spectacle. Shadow has distinct style but none of the flare and its characters are petty, power hungry and fight in the dark instead of showing off. Like a bad soap opera. Still compared to others it's above average but in his standards pitiful.

Right off the bat, I'll mention the main negative of the movie (as this will probably be the first thing you will encounter).

The beginning is so slow and uninteresting, that you'll be tempted to switch off after the first 30 minutes. And you'll be forgiven for doing so, due to the very limited nature of the characters and setting. And as bizarre this may sound, one of the film's main strengths -- the dull colours / visuals -- may contribute to your boredom. And that's because of the movie's chosen colour scheme (dark grey vs light grey).

But if you can get over this hurdle (and its not easy, I admit) and appreciate how beautiful they movie actually looks, you'll soon be rewarded with a middle and end that eventually picks up in excitement, plot and action.

If you're a fan of Chinese cinema and its ancient themes, you'll like this. The way its shot, the editing, the action and the visuals....are stunning at times. And you may appreciate it if you can get over the very boring beginning.

I've always loved foreign cinema, especially the Asian culture; it's so diverse and unique that one could spend years and years studying and still barely scratch the surface. The history is vast and rich, and the films of Asian cinema always bring that to light. There's something about the craftmanship of such films that just feels so much more visceral and rewarding as compared to most American movies. And with Shadow we find director Zhang Yimou ("Hero", "The Great Wall") at his truest form, giving us his most visually satisfying, narratively complex, and action packed movie to date. The film does have a slow start, building the world that we're in and the characters and what their motives are. It's a layered narrative that requires a good bit of attention, each character giving meaning to the scene. Although the pacing is a tad off, it's always an absorbing watch due to the gorgeous cinematography, from the sweeping landscapes to the dense foggy atmosphere this movie just looks phenomenal. I found myself wanting the biggest screen possible to watch such a spectacle. There's a scene when opposing soldiers use their umbrella swords and twirl their way down a cobblestone street all the while firing their crossbows at the enemy, it's bonkers but it's so stylish and inventive. I thought I'd seen it all by now, but Shadow only goes to show there's probably a lot more to see. Overall Shadow is an exceptionally well made martial arts film, one that uses slow burn to a wonderful effect, never distancing itself from the viewer, but still able to build a strong hero and villain organically.

As "Shadow" (2018 release from China; 116 min.) opens, we are thrown in what seems like the middle of a story line. A kingdom's King and his Commander are arguing about the Commander's unauthorized challenge to a rival kingdom. The King is not pleased as this may undo the truce and alliance between the two kingdoms. But the real challenge is how to take back Jing City, held by yet another rival kingdom for the last 20 years. At this point we are 10 min. into the movie, but to tell you more of the plot would spoil you viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest opus from Chinese writer-director Zhang Yimou, best known in the US for his masterful "House of Flying Daggers". Here he brings us a Chinese period piece with a Byzantine plot that I was able to follow only in the big picture. I am certain to have missed lots of nuances. But it really doesn't matter, because what we, or certainly I, came to this movie for are the carefully orchestrated, almost ballet-like, fight scenes, and on that level I was not disappointed. Both the one-on-one fights and the massive battle scenes are a thing of beauty. None is better than the invasion of Jing City in the movie's second half, as the battle takes place in the pouring rain. I don't really understand why the movie uses hardly any colors (it's not quite B&W but it's not far from it either), I imagine there is some artistic explanation for it.

"Shadow" premiered at last year's Venice film festival to good acclaim. Yes, almost a year ago. It is now playing a limited run (only 4 days) at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati. The Saturday matinee screening where I saw this at was not attended well (exactly 6 people). That is a shame. If you are in the mood for another epic and Shakespeare-reminding film from China, I'd readily suggest you check out "Shadow", be it in the theater (if you still can), on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.

I just watched this movie a few hours ago and i am still dizzy. The lack of background colors and the almost constant rain add to the complex intrigue. Until the end, one does not know where the director will take us. It is beautifully crafted, the action is realistic, the acting is perfect. This is another "Chef d'oeuvre" from Zhang Yimou. It will be one of these few movies which I shall watch again.. and again, with the same pleasure

Actress Li Sun is enigmatic. The art direction is top notch. The colors of the film are very interestingly used. So are the visual effects, emphasizing the concepts of the yang and the ying. Otherwise the film is just average. I prefer the master director Yang Zhimou of "Not one less" any day than the Yang Zhimou of "Shadow."

During the Three Kingdoms 1,650 years ago, deception was often employed to survive in the high courts of kings. The war commander of one nation is nothing more than a shadow. His twin brother, the real talent, bides his time in the underworld until he can stage a coup and take revenge upon the king. Yet decoys assume a life of their own, and the shadow twin may take the power and possessions of the one he serves, but only if he is willing to strike and at the right moment. A love interest could provide all the motivation he needs, or perhaps all the distraction to cause him to fail and to be recognized for who he is.

There are many layers to this complex and resplendent film. Every frame is beautiful. Backgrounds are in bold black and white, with human figures providing the color. There is pulse quickening action, seductive romance, the eerily enchanting chords of the Chinese harp and ambient sound of rain and running water, wonderful dialogue, humor, history, yin and yang, intriguing stories, attractive people, fantastic acting and sword play, constant surprises, and more. Deng Shao plays both the shadow and the commander, and he does so brilliantly. North American premiere and the best film I saw at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival.

Chinese writer/director Yimou Zhang's 'Shadow' is largely an example of a trailer being better than the film itself. The trailer is captivating, leading one to believe the movie is going to be mixture of martial arts fighting and palace intrigue. However, the full extent of the film is largely unbalanced in this regard, with most of the runtime bogged down with political maneuvering and the action sequences only ramping up towards the last quarter of the movie.

What stands out most is the strikingly beautiful set design, featuring a stark black and white color palette inspired by the ancient Chinese painting tradition of ink brush.

Yet the most challenging aspect of the movie is trying to keep track of the plot's myriad twists and turns. It'd assumably be easily to do if one were fluent in the native language. However, trying to follow the labyrinthian storyline is exceedingly difficult given the fact that the plot is dense and the film is subtitled. As a result, we'd recommend watching 2016's 'The Handmaiden' instead, which is a better representative in the genre.

And making this film shallowed itself to just a skin-deep shell. Another typical "Style over Substance" example.

Director Zhang Yimou has paid too much attention to the colors, the settings and the screen aesthetics of this movie and at same time, similarly paid too much attention to make it more Shakespearean and Akira Kurosawa. He paid too much attention to the artistic manipulation on the settings, costumes, scenario twists. But if you looked back to what he did in "Hero/Ying xiong (2002)", the settings of the emperor's palace is almost identical, dark and suffocating, but the actor, Ryan Zheng, is too young, too light weight if compares him to Chen Dao-Ming's Emperor Chin in Hero. Zheng tried very hard but sometimes it just felt his king role was more like an obnoxious, light weighted, a spoiled young king inherited the kingdom from his father without merit, even lost a very important part of his territory to the neighboring enemy kingdom during his reign.

When the real Commander Jing played together with his wife, some overlooked arrangement was so obviously overdone, his long hairs blew by fan but the hairs of the wife sitting on the opposite were never moved a bit.

If you've also seen the documentary recording how Director Zhang Yimou insisted on the color shades of the film, the calligraphic screen settings in the palace, his constant emphasis on not making this film absolutely representing more in typical and traditional Chinese, but what he had tried so hard to avoid only making this movie still reflected the influence of Akira Kurosawa's style so inevitably. The screenplay also heavily borrowed and adapted from Shakespearean plays, a mixture of "King Lear", "Hamlet" and "Macbeth", and even with some ideas from Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis ", George Orwell's "1984" and Albert Camus' "The Stranger"; the "Big Brother" and "Eye in The Sky" are everywhere, watching your every scheme and move, the conspiracy and the planned double cross you thought that only you knew was but a wishful thinking.

Zhang Yimou has paid too much to the "FORM" of the movie, so over the top emphasized that inevitably made it more pretentious and artificial. His strenuous insists on perfection of each and every complicated setting, his tough decisions to redo or remake the settings definitely cost more unpredictable budget, I just wonder if such overblown budget extravaganzas would actually be earned back or make even from a full frontal world-wide release.

Besides the above-mentioned, this movie also has a fatal flaw as most of the Chinese movies related to the ancient time and era: THE MESSY DIALOG! If you are a foreigner watching a Chinese movie with the ancient historical background by the help of English subtitles, you might not be able to find the ridiculousness of the Chinese dialog in these movies, but to a Chinese who knows how the modern day Chinese different from the ancient Chinese, in speaking and writing, then you'd know how ridiculous the Chinese screenplay writers wrote their "Dialog"! It's such a laughable mixtures of modern day commonly spoken Chinese (Pu-Tong-Hua or Bai Hua) and the ancient writing words (Gu-Wen or Wen-Yen-Wen). The modern day Chinese screenplay writers never seem to know how to separate both for the old ancient movies. The dialogs in these movies when spoken by all the characters, sometimes are so modern and sometimes it only existed in old Chinese articles, not spoken by the people but in only writing. So the dialogs in Chinese movies with the ancient historical background, those actors would have to speak the modern day Mandarin Chinese and mixed with the words only the ancient Chinese would be used in writing. Such absurdity seems never to be able to solve but always overlooked. This movie's dialog is no exception, exactly like what Hsiao-Hsien Hou did in "The Assassin 2015", ancient characters sometimes were speaking those words that could only have existed in writing, and sometimes the dialogs suddenly would only have appeared in modern days, it's just ruined the whole movie and made it so funny and so painfully to watch.

Typical of the Wuxia style, Shadow gets credit for the remarkable clothing and battle gear as well as the stylish aspects of color and contrast used. However, acting is often mediocre to bad, and the switching from color to muted to b&w just seems gimmicky after a while rather than bold cinematic choices. The fight scenes were competent, the story line, though, was a tired rehash.

Visually this movie is a blessing for the eyeballs. Sounds are amazing as well. Everything is just right up until the last 20 minutes or so of the movie. If the movie ended 20 minutes before it did it would have been better surely.

I simply stopped caring after the 6th or so expected plot twist in those last couple of minutes (and there were more twists after that as well). Not to mention every time the King or the Commander had one of their frequent lunatic cackles, I rolled my eyes so many times to those so hard that I could see my own brain.

Director's style seems unchanged since Hero, fascinating landscape, enchanting images, fantastic choreography, ancient chinese music and costumes. All characters have distinct traits. Yet, movie is not strong enough to beat Hero with regards to cast, integrity of sub-stories, visual and emotional effects on audience. Hence it looks like a dull and simple version of Hero

I'm never a big fan of Mr. Zhang Yimou especially in recent two decades. To me his all time best movie is "To Live"(1994). After 2000, since "Hero", his movies seems only focused on creating pretty images but all have very weak stories and most of the characters were too simple and tedious. But this time "Shadow" is not a weak story, it looks like a simple story but in fact is a complicated one which have several storylines and everybody in this movie have multiple character sides, every characters has strong personalities and strong thoughts. Although there are still some symbolic things which are kinda weird but I have to say this is one of his best in recent two decades.

Everything is hard but not the ultimate. Throughout the identity anxiety of the characters, the middle section has fallen into the preferences of personal delusions. The aesthetics that have been emphasized all the time are also swaying in the spectacle, and the feeling of the small pattern has not been able to achieve fit in the scene. After reading it, I was so helpless that I had to revisit it from the movie experience. The photographer's phrase "seriously tangled" is interesting!

This is an amazing film. The way it was shot, the script, the acting, the storyline are all excellent. The last 20 minutes of the film take the story to a whole another place. Great job by everyone on this film!!!

Since Zhang Yimou swears to be a slave to the authorities in the movie "Hero", he has become one of the directors I hate and even despise. However, it must be admitted that this is a fairly good movie. Perhaps the film also reflects his own dissatisfaction with being a slave.

This movie is a really good Chinese costume drama. Almost every thing about it is superb: the story itself, the plot twists, the characters, the acting, the style, the stage direction, the effects, the drama... But what strikes the most about it is how easily the most fantastic scenes can change into the most truthful realism in a matter of mere seconds; how fantasy and realism are interweaved to make the most stunning depiction of the battle. The movie is just a masterpiece, if only being a bit too slow and contemplative for the Western viewer. But it is definitely worth seeing!

Everyone is the pawn of the king and commander. These two are the only good actors, not the shadow, or anyone else. They make stories complex and unexpected. It's typical idea of Chinese movie making. Try every possible way to make you confuse and not totally understand it in order to show how great the director is. Director Zhang is a great director but still very limited to mediocre Chinese movie making.

Master filmmaker Zhang Yimou's (RAISE THE RED LANTERN, HERO) latest, SHADOW, is a personalized epic set during the Three Kingdoms in China. The first half of the picture revolves around a wayward King (Zheng Kai), his sister Qing Ping (Xiaotong Guan), his Commander Yu (Deng Chao) and Yu's wife Xiao Ai (Li Sun). There's a considerate amount of palace intrigue bandied about, and it includes a look-alike (a "Shadow") of one of the characters. While not scintillating, Yimou and his co-writer Wei Li have structured the movie so that this dialogue heavy section sets up the action centerpieces to follow. And, they do follow. Yimou, cinematographer Xiaoding Zhao and his stunt team concoct quite the thrilling spectacle. And, you can actually clearly see and follow it's flow (which isn't always the case with battle scenes). One on one combat is juxtaposed expertly with the battle lines. The weapon of choice are Metal Umbrellas that aren't made up of cloth sections - but, spinning blades! Spectacle aside, what gives the battle scene an extra wallop are some unexpected twists and turns. In contrast to his colorful Wuxia films HERO and HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, Yimou and Production Designer Horace Ma here employ a metallic black and chrome look that is equally stunning in its own way (there is also much use of ying & yang symbolism). While Yimou never lets his pictorial sense overwhelm his story, it's worth remarking upon. The cast is solid and the relatively sparse score by Loudboy is effective (although a sequence cutting back and forth between the Commander and his wife exuberantly playing traditional instruments and a battle scene is a bit much). The screenplay is a bit muddled and repetitive. Still, it's a relief to see an action movie where character development isn't reduced to exchanging a few quips while whizzing through a CGI chase sequence. SHADOW may not be at the peak level of Yimou's work, but, it's a visually exciting picture, which, appropriately, ends not with combat, but, a singular focus on a character's eyes.