User reviews

It seems as though it is only a half finished project. A first time joint venture- a major motion picture project put together by the Chinese and the Korean production teams, the Chinese took part in pre-production; from writing up the screen play to directing (a Chinese guy who made Jet Li's "Black Mask), acting & filming while the Korean team took care of most of the post production (& funding), the CGI, and scoring.

With almost unlimited amount of funding and the pool of world-class production talents in Asia, I cannot help but wonder how an opportunity like this could have gone this wrong. The famous Chinese classic- the three kingdoms - is an epic war story that one could not find its proper match in its scale in any part of the world. The movie deserved more than only a 90 min. duration. Why Why Why did the director and its team decide to cut out anything that resembled a real drama? Who knows. Jhon Woo wanted to give the project a proper attention, so in his upcoming three kingdoms project,'the red cliff' he is devoting 4 hours to tell the story.

The action sequences, camera works, set designs, costumes, and props, and even the score, you name it, they were all top notch. But Why? Why no Drama? Why could't the director decide to use another 30 more minutes to supplement the sheer absence of story-telling and the sufficient characterization of each of the major characters ? It would only have made the film 120 minutes, which is still within the main stream block buster length range. Besides I bet that anyone who came to see the movie must have expected something more of a... "brave heart" type of epic story and heart wrenching human drama and understood appreciatively even if the movie went more than 2 hours.

What a waste...indeed !!! I am a big fan of Three kingdoms and Any Lau, so i will always love any project that has anything to do with those 2 elements, but this one.... oh... a surprisingly disappointing project, indeed. I gave it a 5 out of ten, because as I mentioned, the picture is only a half-finished and at least that half was pretty good.

Andy Lau stars as a general who started as a foot soldier and worked his way up through the ranks after several acts of heroism.Thirty years on he's forced to fight one last battle against the daughter of an old enemy.

Apparently based on the same source material (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms) that John Woo is using for his 5 hour Red Cliffs (due for release later this year) Here the "epic" story is reduced to around 100 minutes of marching armies and battles. Any sense of plot is cast aside for the fighting and deep pronouncements. To be fair the DVD I watched had barely coherent subtitles, but at the same time they were coherent enough to know that they really didn't have a great deal to translate. The plot lurches from thing to thing with very little explanation- or rather only explanation to carry the emotion. We're told things rather than shown things. The performances of Lau and Sammo Hung provide a great deal of emotion that isn't in the script. The bond between the two men and the emotion that they impart are the reason you watch the film, not for anything else...

...okay maybe the action. As a film of epic action scenes its quite good. its not great but it is is good in a retro old school style. Its pretty pictures of armies fighting and it is entertaining, if rarely engaging (something the films scant dialog and character building prevents from ever happening). Never mind that coming as it does on the heels of the Jet Li masterpiece Warlords the film has a great deal to live up to since that earlier film had real characters and real action, two things this film never manages to achieve. Add to the mix the over use of slow motion and the film really isn't worth the trouble.

Actually its worth looking at if you want to see the fighting and a couple of good performances.

Well, This is the first time that I came here. Actually, it is because of this movie made me come here! Because he is a Korean Director, I can bear and forgive his unknowns about the real and reasonable history of Three Kingdoms of Ancient China. But there is something I can't bear, and I am sure nobody had known Ancient China can bear.

The costumes(or Amor), I am sure they are all Japannese Style! I am not want to cause any racism arguments, but it is Chinese History, what's hell you give the worries Japannese Amors? Can I shoot a movie about Civil War of US but give them Ancient European Amors? And also there are many many unreasonable details about the story. Our Forums have discussed how bad and how stupid about this story~~~~Well, I know most of u guys can't understand what I am saying. Overall, it is not a good story, but it may be a good WAR FILM which made people excited.

Another Chinese epic film filled with heroes, enormous battle scenes, amazing panoramas and some great actors. Sounds cool and like a sure winner yet its an enormous waste of money and talent.

The battle scenes are a big disappointment. It would be fine if the writers/director/producers created a film that was small on battle scenes big on character development, plot development and dialog. Yet, the battle scenes are the majority of the film and there is no character development, very limited plot development and the dialog is boring and thankfully there's not much of it.

The battle scenes are filled with short cuts which are extremely hard to follow. One cut will have mounted units charging from left to right on the screen and then the next cut will show mounted units charging from right to left. Logically the viewer is led to believe that there are two opposing mounted units charging each other. A few cuts later it becomes apparent that all the mounted units are on the same side and chasing one guy.

The film spends 30-45 minutes on two battle sequences featuring a young Zilong, then 5-7 minutes on an elaborate ceremony featuring a middle aged Zilong and the rest of the film time is spent on the old Zilong.

The cinematography is typical of recent Chinese epics overly beautiful (death never looked so pretty) and big on ceremony. The problem is that it was chopped up like almond-fried chicken. The cinematography could have been the saving grace of this film however it was edited by someone on crack. The result is that it is beautifully confusing.

If you are looking for another great or at least entertaining Chinese epic film look elsewhere. There really is no reason to watch this film unless you are curious to the point of being masochistic as I often am.

Three kingdom: Resurrection of the Dragon tells about the legend of one famous General Zhao Yun in the Three Kingdom. But unfortunately, there are many flaws in this movie.

First, this movie is a little bit off from the actual history. I never knew that Zhao Yun started his first career as a soldier directly under Liu Bei. He should been under a general name Gongsun Zan, before he changed his loyalty to Liu Bei. Then, there are Cao Ying and Luo Ping-An. Who the hell are they? Because as far as I know, the one who fought Zhao Yun in the last battle was Chao Zhen.

Secondly, for the actor. I personally think that Andy Lau is well-suited as General Zhao Yun here. But the actor for both General Guan Yu and Zhang-Fei is a little bit out of the course. While the actor who casted as Guan Yu seems too old, the actor's face who cast as Zhang Fei seems so childish. And the actor who played as Zhuge Liang looks like a traditional physician instead of a strategist. Generally, I would say, the casting is a minus here (except for Andy Lau, of course) For the story, it lacks explanation. There's no explanation for any act inside. No briefing before wars, no strategy meeting before wars, no nothing. It just give off the conclusion of what is happening right now, and lead us directly into the war. That's all. And that too, is a minus.

But still, I like the war in this. That's why I still give this movie a rating of 6, instead of 5.

Not good enough for all three kingdom fans. But if you're looking for just a war movies, than this is definitely for you.

To be brief, this movie was a disappointment.

The reasons are simple - it lacks any characterization, the whole story feels like a synopsis, not a full story. Scenes and images flashed by as if we are scanning (selected) pages of a novel, with no real details given.

I thought Andy Lau was good for the role and I didn't even mind Maggie Q's role; the samurai-like armor; the Wei forces' helmets resembling Stahlhelms (Nazi helmets) and the Shu's are like British soldiers being so obvious. These are cosmetic and artistic choices and didn't pose as a serious distraction. (The brief appearances of some other main ROTK characters were done just right and did provide a nice glimpse into what might have been part of a more romantic epic.) But still, give more meat to the story and characters, make it a real movie, not a hundred minutes long trailer.

I like eastern movies, that are build around dynasties and wars and such. Even a lesser effort like this can be entertaining for me. I've said it before though, since I've watched MUSA, no other movie has come close to that! It's difficult to make another one, that would be in the same vein. While this one couldn't hold up to that, it's not able to hold up to other movies too (even from recent future, like THE WARLORDS, with Jet Li and Andy Lau).

All in all, this is quite nice, the action is decent, the story moves along with a good pace and it's quite enjoyable overall. If you will like it or not, depends on your view of movies in that genre/vein. Just don't expect anything great and you won't be disappointed!

Andy Lau's been making war movies like they're going out of style, but his latest is a long arrow shot off the almost-classic A Battle of Wits, the anti-war actioner with the humane moral we liked so much.

Three Kingdoms, which to its credit is at least somewhat historically accurate, is very much removed from anything to do with discouraging carnage. In fact, it's one of those patriotic affairs where the opening sequence (yet again) bemoans the land's splintering into hostile polities, and the need to consolidate.

Not only have we seen exactly this kind of rhetoric a million times before, we've seen it in what feels like a million better, more fun movies. This Three Kingdoms isn't about fun, it's a laborious film whose greatest achievement is squandering tremendous star power on trivialities and a formulaic story.

Just to make sure you know, it's got Andy Lau, Sammo Hung, Maggie Q (why can't she just be Margaret Quigley we don't know), our beloved Andy On, Ti Long AND Yu Rongguang. Even with all of these obviously talented and well-trained professionals on board, Three Kingdoms still ends up a disappointment. And we won't even go into this being a DANIEL LEE flick. Yes, one of our fave directors in HK and the guy that kindly gave us awesome fare like Black Mask and Dragon Squad.

OK, it's not all bad. The basic premise is entirely trite but could have worked had it been treated well. We have one Zhao Zilong (Andy Lau), a regular guy from Changsha who joins the army in defense of his kingdom, one of three main ones competing for primacy over the realm. Yes, it's the story straight out of the novel and previous iterations, more or less, with sort of the same characters. Zhao Zilong befriends senior troop Luo Pingan (Sammo Hung), who guides the younger man into combat, where Zhao promptly proves his mettle and proceeds to rise through the ranks until making it as a nigh on invincible hero general.

Along the way he meets a cast of warriors, including Andy On and Vanness Wu in supporting and ultimately unfulfilled roles (and some awkward hairwork on the part of makeup). On the opposing side, we find Maggie as warlordess Cao Ying, aided by her general Han.

None of these characters get sufficient room to breathe and grow, resulting in something more akin to Konami's Dynasty Warriors – there's constant hacking and slashing, with protagonists hard to believe since they're so powerful but with no likable goal. The only motivation seems to be a jingoistic "unite the word by killing everyone", which is fair enough, but not enough to make a film good.

The battle sequences aren't the best, and you've sat through much more exciting ones very recently. There's some good CGI blood splattered all over the shop, which is an added bonus, but the inverse ninja law here simply isn't as amusing as it usually is – the two Andies go through so many enemy black armors it's literally not funny anymore, proof positive that if you want to make a massive swordplay movie, either endow it with a strong, heartfelt message, or render it a la the insane wuxia of the early to mid '90's. As it stands, Three Kingdoms is like Zhang Yimou's Hero without the pretty, artistic visuals and buzz power, or like Musa without the visceral grit and cynicism.

On the plus side, Three Kingdoms ends by mentioning the Jin dynasty, one of history's less remembered mainland dynasties. Yes, we get to avoid another heralding of Qin Shihuang.

This isn't trying to go heavy-handed on the movie. I'm sure they worked hard and meant well, but the end result isn't satisfying – not even close. For sure we'll be getting better stuff soon both from the director and his cast. Skip this one, you won't be missing much.

Three kingdoms is a great Chinese masterpiece that is set in the era of the three kingdoms that ruled china. The cao, wu and liu dynasties were trying to unite china each under their own leadership and in a result it produces wars between the three houses for decades. The story in this movie is told from the Liu's point of view and my god what a story that is.

I don't know really why people are not giving this high ratings, it should be on the IMDb top 100. I guess most people that watch Chinese movies are in it because of the martial arts and people flying prospective. If you are looking for something like that then go watch house of the flying daggers or The Forbidden Kingdom because this movie is not about massive FX's and stunts. It simply tells a story with some battles shoved in. The movie is quite emotional and the acting was superb. As for the directing it truly is brilliant, the battles were directed with passion and ingeniousness with great sound effects and slowmo shots that makes it even more desirable to watch over and over again.

This is one movie that shouldn't be missed by Chinese history/mythology fans. Its a 10/10 and I don't care what other people might think, its just a masterpiece.

Based on the classical "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" Daniel Lee ventures back to one of the most important eras of Chinese history - the time of the titular Three Kingdoms, of ever-lasting conflict and battles, which formed many a legend. Here focus is directed to the famed and glorified general Zhao Zilong (an ever-pleasing Andy Lau), a supposedly undefeated warrior, who brought glory to the the kingdom of Liu Bei. Backed by the military genius of Zhuge Liang (Cunxin Pu) and the remaining Five Tiger Generals, the heroes bathed in glory.

Opulent, radiant the settings, scenery, cinematography, lighting and general art direction borders on perfection with each shot nurtured and tended too is this lavish epic. With appropriate heroic pathos to accompany the story-telling Zhao Zilong is presented as a chaste and immaculate warrior, as if almost striving towards a Buddhist transcendence. Unrivalled in battle, loved by all men and glorified even by contemporaries, Zhao shines even when riding out by himself against an entire army. Naturally such a directorial choice can't be criticised, similarly as chanson de geste type poems are what they are: glorified monuments of heroic deeds, unabashedly singing praise to the main protagonist. In a take it or leave it deal, Zhao Zilong is a hero, unfailing and relentless in pursuit of unification of the kingdoms, even in tragedy a man suit for tall tales of glory.

However "Three Kingdoms" falters due to one rather overbearing glitch: lack of middle story. The depiction of Zhao Zilong's life basically limits itself to an extravagant presentation of two moments of his story: the beginning and the end of his legend. Unfortunately Daniel Lee fails to even trouble himself with building any back-story to the character (who was he? where did he come from? what motivated him?) or worse yet fails to build any backbone to Zilong, instead fast-forwarding us from his initial feat of bravery as a young man, straight into the time of him being an elderly general, the sole remaining of the Five Tiger Generals, right before what was to be his final battle.

The whole context of in between is forfeited, thus never even truly affording the audience an understanding as to the prominence of his battle achievements or allowing him to build an emotional connection with viewers. Such a thinly presented story is however aptly summarised in the fading line of the movie itself "How many things before and after fade into gossip and laughter."

Zhao Zhilong, a legend might not want to spend his hard earned money on this movie about his life. Really, i think this movie doesn't quite live it up to the hype that it should be, and if you had watched "The Warlords" before this one, you'll really be disappointed with the whole setup of plot and action.

I give credit, the costumes are quite decently well done, the only complain i have is that the soldiers, commanders and Maggie Q's Cao Ying are too Japanese armoured. Yes, their armour reminds me abit of those armour worn by soldiers, samurais during the warring period. I wouldn't have minded if both Shu and Wei had the same armour but different color in this case. I give credit also for the work done for Andy Lau when he appeared as an aged Zhilong, the make up really bring out the age and favour when you see the aged Zhilong.

Other than that, the plot strings itself quite weakly with some narration to string the viewers from one event to another. Fact is, it almost felt like those cut scenes in video games, where they want to bring you right into the action ... and that's how it felt at some points of the movie ... I just felt that it could be far better executed.

The action scenes are nothing much to write home too. Like i said before, if you had watched "The Warlords", you'll find it a yawn. I'm not implying i want a lot of violence and gore, but there wasn't much intensity in the fights, from the soldier to soldier clashing up to duels between characters, i just feel a lack of intensity in most of the battle scenes.

You will get to see some additional 3 Kingdom characters appearing in this movie, and I really think some of the casting of characters is quite wrong. The 2 big disappointment for me was how Guan Yu looked liked (way too short!) and the casting for Guan Xi.

All in all, i wouldn't catch this movie again honestly, wouldn't recommend it. To end off in a positive note, i do have to say that Andy Lau is able to play a decent Zhao Zhilong, just felt bad the movie doesn't really help to showcase his role!

The top review I see on here asks why this movie isn't getting higher ratings. I counter: why should it? What should be a masterful story is ruined by absolutely poor directing. This movie seeks to do such much in a short amount of time. If this movie were another hour long, maybe they could've squeezed everything in. Instead, you have back stories that don't get fleshed out, people who become major characters out of nowhere and then suddenly its supposed to be emotional when they get killed, and decades of time passing with barely any filler of what happened in that time. And what is up with the ending? There is no catharsis, there is no meaning behind any of the actions that occur, there is just superfluous and emptiness. And why even throw in that hint of a love story? Nothing ever gets spoken of it again. Everything that occurs is just pointless.

If you are looking for a Chinese war movie simply to pass some time, this is watchable. Beyond that, there are many other movies in that genre that are more enjoyable and well crafted.

"Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon" is an action movie that uses some history to justify lots of fights, too many close-ups, and some hammy dialogue. It makes for ninety-odd minutes of average fun, but not much more.

The story is easy to follow: We have Andy Lau's Zilong, the unbeatable general, and... well, that's basically it. He goes around, has fights, looks like he's constipated (actually Lau's acting is good enough) and talks a lot. All of this with the fights between some kings (or emperors) for the unification of China as the background of the story. It will be easier to follow the story if you know a little bit of the hi-story. But it could be about anything, really, if it was for the plot. Paper thin.

But if there's not much plot, and the characterization and acting is just average, what makes the movie interesting? Well, the fights are acceptable, and you have your good share of them. And even if the dialogue falls into the cheesy type, all this bigger-than-life speeches make for a good time. And it looks the part.

Nothing amazing, but, as said in the title, good enough if you don't have much to do and are in for some action-history-fighting.

China has been churning out historical war films like there's no tomorrow, and THREE KINGDOMS is yet another in a long line of similar lavish and stylish epics. This one's a co-production with South Korea and sees Andy Lau yet again playing a brave and loyal soldier who finds himself battling immense odds in ancient China.

THREE KINGDOMS certainly looks the part, with hulking battle sequences featuring huge armies massing and meeting on sweeping plains. The quality of the effects is such that you can't tell that some of these soldiers are CGI animations, like in LORD OF THE RINGS; who knows, maybe they aren't! The action choreography is slightly blurry, so that it's easy to miss crucial detail in the battle sequences, and there's a slight over-reliance on wirework, but for the most part this is a vicious, viscous piece of cinematography.

The storyline is equally interesting, with Andy Lau playing a guy who rises from the ranks to become a hero, and Sammo Hung supporting him in an atypical part of a cowardly man who also ends up rising high. Unfortunately, the viewer is also saddled with the overrated Maggie Q (NAKED WEAPON) playing a warrior queen; everything about her screams artifice and hollowness to me, but the good news is that she isn't given too much screen time. More dependable genre stalwarts like Ti Lung and Rongguang Yu are given meaty roles, however.

The first half of the film depicts a fairly typical rise-to-power type storyline, but the second half is much more interesting, with events skipping forward twenty years in the future and the outcome much more uncertain. In fact, it gets better as it goes on, featuring a climax that can only be described as epic in feel. THREE KINGDOMS might be easy to miss amid a welter of similar product, but it's certainly entertaining enough to reward the viewer's attention.

The posted review for this film is a disgrace. I agree that It's not a very good film but the reviewer stunned me with his/her towering ignorance. Here's a few points:

1) The romance of the three kingdoms was not a civil war, China wasn't even a united country until afterwards when victory was attained.

2) The reference to more modern British and Nazi helmets is idiotic. The similarity is to first world war helmets anyway so they would be German not Nazi for starters. Secondly everything in the film is traditionally Chinese so why are helmets any different. Thirdly there were no "goodies" or "baddies" so why do they want to subtly want to make us think that. Finally you don't think that two designs for protective headgear might just look similar.

3) Agreed, poor (non existent) characters and objective story telling. But the romance of the three kingdoms is a story which spans many years and a number of lifetimes and has countless characters. It should really have been a trilogy or a series. They really bitten off more than they could chew.

Before you go and write something make sure you at least have a clue what you're talking about please. I suspect too many reviewers on this site to have an extra chromosome or two. Come on and put in a little more effort eh.

Such an epic movie! It has beautiful battle scenes and the main character Zhao Zilong is just a beast and a half. Like seriously the mans blood is probably what was used to create steroids. Also Cao Ying played by Maggie Q is such a well done character and Maggie's portrayal was brilliant, not to mention that she is a gorgeous actress.

The movie has a great cast and a the action scenes and emotions are played out really well.

My ONLY criticism to the movie is a slightly weaker storyline. I'm not saying you won't enjoy it as I definitely did, I am just saying that they could have maybe had a slightly better and improved storyline as I felt the movie was a bit short.

On the surface this movie had everything. Sammo Hung directing the fight scenes and acting in a major role. Maggie Q in a Chinese speaking action role. Some amazing scenery and sets.

But sadly it is quite a dull movie, probably because the direction and script were also dull. Chi Leung took an interesting story and made it boring. The action scenes were not bad but seemed to have no point to them. The story was hard to follow and at points you lose interest in it. Who is who is confusing and the characters are not well rounded out, so much so that this feels like a movie full of extras and no stars. Magge Q is excellent but too underused and her character is just not evil enough. Any Lau may as well not have been in the movie as he is as dull as can be.

So a wasted opportunity when this could have been so much better.

It's 228 A.D. China is divided among the Wei, Wu and Shu kingdoms. Zhao Zilong (Andy Lau) and Luo Ping-An (Sammo Hung) are at an outmanned Shu outpost in Liu Bei's army. They are part of adviser Zhuge Liang's successful surprise attack. Later, Ping-An is ambushed and loses Liu Bei's family. Zilong goes off and rescues Liu Bei's baby son. He comes face to face with warlord Cao Cao. Zilong would become one of the Five Tiger Generals and later face off against Cao Cao's granddaughter Cao Ying (Maggie Q).

This tries to be an epic war period piece. While the story is easy to follow, there is a lack of emotional acting. The war action is lacking intensity. It uses too much slow motion and needs to be filmed better. Overall, it's a boring war movie and the performances are lacking. Sammo Hung is the only one bringing any kind of personality.