(Credit: Amazon.com)
Directed by
Tsui Hark
Cast:
Ekin Cheng …. King Sky
Cecilia Cheung …. Dawn/Enigma
Louis Koo …. Red
Patrick Tam …. Thunder
Kelly Lin …. Amnesia
Sammo Hung …. White Eyebrows
Zhang Ziyi …. Joy
Jacky Wu …. Hollow/Ying
Lan Shun …. Master Trascendental
The Movie:
In 1983, Tsui Hark directed The Legend of Zu: Warriors of Magic Mountain. Combining elements of Fantasy, Martial Arts, and Romance the film is now considered one of the hallmarks of the Golden Age of Hong Kong cinema. After the worldwide success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000, and the renewed interest in Martial Arts films, Director Tsui Hark decided he would revisit his film, recreating it for a new generation with modern special effects and the best actors of Hong Kong.
After passing on Crouching Tiger, Miramax studio bosses were clamoring to get their hands on the next big thing from Hong Kong. As a result, the studio bought the rights to Hero, Shaolin Soccer and Hark’s new Zu Warriors in 2001. Unfortunately, the studio has not known what to do with these films as they have had sloppy releases and controversial edits. Zu Warriors did not even get a theatrical run and is finally being released on DVD this month.
To Miramax’s credit, there’s probably a reason Zu Warriors has been held back so long. The film is horribly dense, with the talking vs. fighting ratio not nearly enough in favor of fighting. Also when there is action, traditional swordplay is excised in favor of tons CGI heavy fighting which feels closer to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers than it does to the original Zu or Crouching Tiger.
Both the English version, which is a little shorter and the original Cantonese version are available on this disc. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I actually prefer the English version as it’s easier to navigate the plot. Basically, the film is about the forces of good vs. the forces of darkness. More specifically, the film is about the Omei Clan, the immortal warriors that govern the magical land of Zu. When the evil Onyx (Insomnia in the Cantonese version) comes back to destroy their cherished land, the leader, Sammo Hung’s
White Eyebrows (named so because he has…long, white eyebrows) gathers all of his fiercest warriors to stave off the attack.
Unfortunately, the film goes into too many details about their different magical swords that they will use to defeat Onyx and doesn’t just use them to fight. There’s the thunder sword which has to be combined with the fire sword to create an infinite sword, which will defeat their enemy. Only the combination ritual goes awry and one of the two Warriors wielding the weapons dies, but is conveniently reincarnated later on in the film. In the mean time, a fairy named Amnesia (Kelly Lin) who is actually working for Onyx, is able to possess one of Zu’s greatest warriors, Red (Louis Koo) who then attacks the rest of the warriors.
There are other subplots as well. One has Zhang Ziyi’s Joy, who is a mortal who has come to be trained and fight with the Zu Warriors. For being on the cover of this DVD, she’s really not in the movie very long at all. Another has Ekin Cheng’s King Sky falling in love with his master Dawn (Cecelia Chang), who is destroyed by Onyx, but then also reincarnated as another character named Enigma. None of these plots really pay off in the end.
The film wastes what really cool characters they do have. Louis Koo’s Red has metal wings made of daggers that can shoot them at his enemies. Unfortunately, after he’s possessed his costume just looks silly. He looks like he’d be more at home on Saturday morning TV than he does in an epic Martial Arts Fantasy.
This should have been an easy home run for Hark, but unfortunately the movie’s plot is so very tedious, and all the action is sub par. There comes a point when you can’t just have your characters shooting laser beams out their hands and still have it be interesting. The DVD cover boasts Yuen Woo Ping’s choreography, but you can hardly tell as not much hand to hand fighting actually takes place. A better example of this type of film making is The Storm Riders which takes several similar Fantasy themes and meshes them with Martial Arts to a more satisfying level.
Score: 4.0 /10
The DVD:
The Video
For all its faults, Zu Warriors is beautiful to look at. The print here is pretty decent with all the CGI coming out very crisp. Perhaps watching this film muted is the best way to go. Zu Warriors is presented in Anamorphic Widescreen with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1.
The Audio
The film features two versions of the film with the Original Cantonese Track being longer than the English, but it’s also a lot more discernable. Either version is fine. The soundtrack is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1.
SPECIAL FEATURES: Featurette
The Making of Zu Warriors – This is an 18 minute documentary which shows you a lot of footage from the film that you just watched and hammers in the fact that the film is packed with CGI instead of practical effects. It does have Tsui Hark trying to explain the symbolism in the film, which doesn’t help explain it at all really.
Score: 2.0 /10
