To Die with Honor

Whilst it boasts a spectacular battle scene at the finale, The War Of Loong is a film that looks like it's been chopped to pieces in the editing room. It runs to one hour, forty minutes in length but it wouldn't be surprising if it was originally meant to be twice that. Events happen quickly and there are cuts everywhere, making for a confusing and disjointed film that happens to have one almighty ruck at the end.

The film tells the story of the Battle Of Bang Bo, a major event in the Sino-French war of the 1880s. It revolves around General Feng Zicai, a tough but aging military hero who comes out of retirement to fight the French. He pulls together a rag-tag army and then links up with an ally to conduct hit and run strikes on the invaders, leading to a huge clash in a picturesque valley.

And as stated, that battle is amazing. The landscape is torn apart by artillery, bodies are tossed through the air like ragdolls and sabre-wielding lunatics charge into one another with reckless abandon. It's a well choreographed and hugely entertaining war scene that takes up nearly a third of the movie. It's worth watching for the battle alone.

However, The War Of Loong also suffers because of how quickly it tries to get to that point. There's tension between Zicai and one of his sons which is never explored to the full potential. Plus there's at least one supporting character who's clearly had their own storyline cut out of the film. This makes it very hard to care about any of the people fighting and dying, even if their slow motion death scenes are impressive to watch.

It's enjoyable but to be quite honest, if you can find the battle on Youtube you may as well just watch that. The world building of the first two thirds is so rushed it might as well not exist.