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
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Al Young. Empress Scenery. 03 February 2008
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