welcome, infidel!

It would be tough for me to describe this movie too much without giving away major elements of the plot, but Chow Yun-Fat is the Chinese emperor, Li Gong is his wife, and they have a strained relationship. He has three sons, one by a different woman.

The movie has martial arts elements but at its core is not a martial arts film. Watching it reminded me of Shakespeare more than anything else.

Its use of color was similar to "Hero" (same director, Yimou Zhang). This makes for fascinating visuals, but I find it somewhat contrived in some scenes and a bit of a distraction -- though it does make it easier to figure out what the hell is going on in some of the larger battle scenes.

This is a very ambitious movie on a grand scale, both in terms of plot and sets. Apparently a thousand actual soldiers were used during the fight scenes, and the sets were not computer generated, they were actually built. Amazing scenery.

Speaking of which, it also has the jiggliest Chinese women I have ever seen in my life. I'm not sure why cleavage has been so neglected in Asian cinema up until now, but he really makes a run at correcting for this historic injustice. No topless scenes, but there is plenty of eye candy here.

Ultimately that's why this gets three stars instead of four. Some people say this is a masterpiece, and it probably could have been, but it comes off as kind of gimmicky to me. Some of the visual elements draw the viewer's attention away from the story.

Still, it's worth a rental. Check it out.