An Empress and the Warriors Review
With a title “the Empress and the Warriors,” one cannot stop from thinking that this will be an epic war film. Set in China when it was composed of ten warring states, a warrior-princess must carry out her duty in leading a nation while fighting for personal romantic fulfillment. The film contains a consistent romantic love plot intertwined with amazing battle scenes and individual martial arts duels. This Chinese action blockbuster could be one of the most anticipated films since “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “House of Flying Daggers.”
This film has made its way into American territories since April of 2008 and with a big-name cast and a $16 million production it promises to do well. Although it is not as suspenseful as Tony Ching’s other works, such as, “A Chinese Ghost Story” or “The Warlords,” the films action packed scenes, masterful picture and big-name actors might be enough to turn this movie into another academy award winner.
Tony Ching’s film delivers from the beginning with a great battle scene, showing the armies of two kingdoms at war with one another. We are introduced to General Muyong (Donnie Yen) and the King of the mighty empire of Yan. The king has decided to hand over the throne to General Muyong. Much to the distaste of the king’s power-hungry nephew Wu Ba (Xiadong Guo), who thought he was next in line for the throne, and especially because Muyong is only a “bastard orphan.” The opening scenes reveal almost everything there is to know about the important characters. These scenes also eliminate a good portion of mystery and suspense that is to follow.
To avoid internal bloodshed and civil war, General Muyong passes the kingdom to Princess Fe-ier (Kelly Chan). She hesitantly accepts because she is left with no choice and now must lead a nation. She is in no way ready for this responsibility, so the general offers to give her proper military training in preparation.
Kelly Chan is a pop-singer turned actress. Made famous from soap operas and romantic comedies (”Infernal Affairs,” “Tokyo Raiders”), she certainly shows more than enough potential for a great acting career in her role as Princess Fe-ier in “An Empress and the Warriors.” Without a doubt, she stands out as a powerful female in a male dominant society.
The next events are very predictable. Wu Ba is obviously very angry about all this and plots to assassinate the Princess. He sends people to attack her during one of her training sessions in the woods. As always, in every fairy tale, the Princess is saved by a soft spoken, handsome guy who she will later fall in love with. This man saves her by activating a series of traps that he so conveniently has lain down just in case there ever was a situation where, let’s say, he needed to save a Princess from an an angry berserk mob.
This mystery savior turns out to be Duan Lanquan (Leon Lai). This man literally lives in a tree. He has set up a series of tree houses that all serve a purpose in offering him a peaceful life alone in the forest. We find out later that he wasn’t always so sensitive and peaceful, that he was a killing machine in his past. The characters all played the script to perfection. But it was the script that needed the better work. The story was very simple, which left little room for surprises making upcoming events very foreseeable.
As Princess Fe-ier spends a grand total of three days with the man that saved her, that is more than enough time for her to fall in love with him. It even goes so far that they share a slow motion horse ride together. Wasn’t this movies suppose to be about war and killing? Anyway, she finally returns to her people and begins her reign. We finally see a strong personality that is unique from most other films because this one portrays a woman as being the leader and hero. Even though outnumbered, she marches into battle leading the charge on top of a horse, looking very majestic, wearing a full suit of intricately designed heavy armor and wielding a great sword. With a great plan she emerges as the victor by capturing the enemy King and making a pact with him to discontinue the war and make peace between the two nations.
As soon as the film becomes enjoyable at last because it is delivering what i was expecting, the Princess decides she doesn’t want to rule anymore. No one wants to be the emperor in this film! She misses her boyfriend and wants to spend time with him in the woods instead of leading a nation. So she gives up her throne and goes to him just in time to share a hot air balloon ride with him over some hills. As if this wasn’t bad enough already, Tony Ching decided that there was something missing so he added a corny Cantonese pop song in the background. This particular choice of music did not fit the scene. Instead of setting the mood it shifted attention away from the events. In general the music was not a strong suit for the film.
I would have also liked to see some more Donnie Yen action. He has already proven that he is up to the task in his previous role fighting along side Jet Li in “Hero.” That is what I was expecting when I found out that he was part of the cast. Instead we get one unnecessary sword duel on top of a little waterfall and a superhero-type scene with him against a full army. His character was played to perfection of course, but I anticipated that Donnie Yen’s talents would be put to better use, especially with Tony Ching sitting on the the director’s seat.
It was reported that the film production reached $16 million. Every bit of this money was spent on the picture. The film delivers amazing scenery and battle picture. From Duan Lanquan’s elaborate tree-house hideout to the sparks of clashing swords, the scenery of the film was definitely one of it’s strengths. If the beauty and complexity of nature and intricate weapon and armor designs is an interest to someone then this would be an enjoyable hour and a half well spent.
There were many flaws in this film that could have been corrected to create a brilliant war epic. The greatest flaw was the extensive focus on the romance in the movie. Most of the scenes were intent on making us feel happy seeing two people in love. However, it even failed to achieve this as I didn’t feel the slightest remorse for any hardships that the protagonists had to go through. There extensive love scenes also eliminated the role of the powerful woman figure that was supposed to be Princess Fe-ier. She showed many qualities that she could play the role but the romance counteracted these and showed more of her feminine qualities.
What made the film particularly hard to enjoy was the translation to English through subtitles. I have no problem reading the subtitles but a $16 million production should at least contain efficient grammar of the language that is legible for viewers to understand. This was the worst translation I have ever witnessed, where there was not one sentence that was written properly. These flaws, in my opinion, did a great job in ruining the film’s success. I would recommend this film to viewers if they wouldn’t mind fast forwarding the majority of the film and watch only the battle scenes. These were the only good aspects of the movie since there were very little words spoken and Tony Ching did a great job in shooting them.
Works Cited:
www.Muzi.com. Donnie Yen as General Muyong. 08 March 2008
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Elodie Leroy. Kelly Chan in “An Empress and the Warriors.” 14 December 2007
<http://img.filmsactu.com/datas/films/a/n/an-empress-and-the-warriors/n/4761bbdd9c3b7.jpg>
Al Young. Empress Scenery. 03 February 2008
<http://twitchfilm.net/site/images/entry_images/An_Empress_and_the_Warriors_34.jpg>
Extra Credit - Descartes’ Meditation I
Meditation I
In this meditation Descartes is trying to discover the distinction between mind and body. He wants to come to the conclusion that what he believes about his existence is solely based on his mind and his thoughts. Also that everything that happens in his life is simply just another trick that the mind plays. Meaning that what he observes with his senses, what he feels with his emotions and other experiences are all just different “modes of thought”.
The first step he takes to accomplish this is by trying to find a distinction between what he knows to be true and what actually the truth is. He decides that he will do this by using rational doubt, meaning that he will rule out an opinion he holds as truth if he can find at least one reasonable doubt of it being true. It would be close to impossible to find doubt to every opinion he holds so Descartes decides to attack the reasons that have supported everything that he once believed. By this he means that he challenges the senses, he says that the senses are sometimes deceptive, where they observe something but in fact it is something else from what they assumed it to be. For example, if you see someone from far away and you think you know the person and you start waving. Once the person comes closer it ends up being some stranger you have never seen before. Therefore the senses are sometimes deceptive. Therefore, we can never place our complete trust on something that has deceived us even once before. The second step is that even when you think the senses are not deceiving you, where you can clearly see your hands in front of you and the pen you are writing with, there still is no way to prove that the body he posses is actually his and not some imagination. There are those who we believe to be insane that think of themselves as kings when they are nothing more than a man and think they are wearing a purple outfit when in fact they are naked. Who is to say that those of us who are supposed to be “sane” are not really imagining ourselves the same way that those who are “insane” imagine themselves. The third step is that he must prove what he is experiencing is not a dream and that in fact it is reality. Dreams seem very real to us when we are asleep and we only know the difference after we wake up. So who is to say that we are not always dreaming. However, the things we see during slumber are I fact painted pictures in our memory which can only be produced if it existed in reality and we had seen it before. So therefore, Descartes proves that at least the eyes, head, hands and the whole body are not imaginary, but true and exist.
In the end of the passage he says that he must go on and see all the truths that he can uncover. However, there is a certain feeling in him that does not want to discover the truth because it might be too difficult to handle. The same way a prisoner does not want to be awakened when dreaming of freedom, Descartes also, does not want to get used to something that is opposite from what is has grown accustomed to. He would much rather nonchalantly conspire with pleasant illusions than horrible truths.
Word Count
Word Count
- Remarks on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. – 401 words
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – 650 words
- Blogging Tips – 283
- Critical Review Assignment – 213 words
Total - 1547 words
Critical Review Assignment
Our next assignment in English class is to write a critical review of a certain subject that we can pick from. I chose to write about a film. The film I have in mind is An Empress and the Warriors, a foreign film about a nation at war. The movie is entirely in Chinese and translated by English subtitles. I found this very interesting because it is different from movies that I have grown accustomed to. Besides the fact that it is in a different language I enjoyed that the person in position of power was a woman. It was very interesting to step away from the stereotypical male authority figure and see how a woman is able to lead a nation. However, I don’t think that enough was done to show her full potential and I think that the love scenes in it might have done more damage than good to the movie.
There are many aspects I find fascinating about the film but there are also many that I think needed to be different or not included at all for the film to be more successful. These will all be included in my review and I will hopefully be able to answer all of the questions that people have to ask.
Blogging Tips
Here are some tips on how to become a better blogger:
First of all it is very easy to become a blogger by just creating an account and start posting articles. However, it takes hard work to actually benefit from blogging. You need to set up a strategy. Focus on a certain topic that appeals to you and try to write as much as you can about it. You need to start and maintain a conversation. You gain more credibility by actively commenting and reading others comments because others will probably link your site to others to credit you for your work. The most important think to keep in mind is to create something that your readers will value. This will be effective because they will come back to your page and not only read it once and forget about it.
Writing about news events is very effective because there are many people that would be interested. However it’s not only a matter of summarizing the news, you have to be able to offer your own opinion and provide new information that will entertain your readers. This will help you sustain and grow your audience. Your opinions and personal experiences are very effective and will be a great benefit to the credibility and popularity of your page. Sometimes, however, you might not have an opinion to provide for certain news. This does not mean that you don’t talk about it. The best thing to do is read other peoples opinions and provide a link to their page on your blog site so that the readers that you do have still have the news they are accustomed to and will keep coming to you.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The effect of 9/11 on Oskar and the rest of the world, was very different because though people lost family members we would imagine how they felt if they lost a mother, father, sister or brother, but to experience 9/11 in the eyes of a 9 year old boy makes you wonder how has that day effected children. Oskar views that day as the worst day ever because not only did he lose a father but also a best friend. Oskar’s relationship with his father was very close, t hey did everything with each other and now that his father died he feels alone, even though he still has his mother she doesn’t mean much to him than his father. Though Oskar viewed 9/11 as the worst day ever others saw it as loss of family, loss of work loss of money, economy going down and much more. Both views on 9/11 have more differences than similarities. The authors’ intention of choosing a child to examine the 9/11 attacks must have been the fact that children didn’t have much say in what they felt about the event because they seems like they had not understanding of what had occurred. A child’s perspective of any event can have so much impact in their life’s that it changes them forever weather it is noticed or not. The fact that a child like Oskar goes through a journey to find answers to his questions makes him unique and what the reader will notice is that it stated in the book that he bruised him self seldom when he made mistakes or though of bad thoughts, or when he didn’t accomplish what he wanted in the first place he would curse. The image that a boy goes to great lengths meeting people he has never before meet in his life to find out answers makes a person think that children are sometimes capable of doing more things than adults.
