Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1443 in Movie
• Released on: 2010-06-29
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Running time: 114 minutes

Customer Reviews

A Chinese war epic well worth seeing
General Pang Qing Yun is the sole survivor of his entire battalion. The Ching army was taken out against Taiping rebels in Hechuan. A woman named Lian spends the night with Pang and leaves before he wakes the next morning. Jiang Wuyang, one of the bandits that rides into the town Pang currently finds himself in, is impressed with Pang's fighting skills and introduces Pang to Zhao Er Hu. Jiang and Er Hu take Pang to their village where Pang is reunited with Lian who just so happens to be Er Hu's wife. The bandits from the village overthrow a passing food convoy and that is thought to be a resolution to their current desperation until the imperial army invades and usurps the food that they stole. Pang, Er Hu, and Jiang take a blood oath to become blood brothers before joining Lord Chen's army. With the odds against them, their 800 soldiers get the upper hand on Shu City's 5,000 as plans are put into motion to overthrow Suzhou and Nanjing, the capital. The brothers soon begin to fall apart on their rise to the top. Er Hu tends to be loyal with his word and his brothers no matter what as Pang will sacrifice anyone and even make deals with his enemies just to win while Jiang is stuck in the middle.

This movie is phenomenal. The battle sequences are stunning, the cinematography is brilliant, and the acting is top notch. The Warlords took everything that was fantastic about Mongol and made it just a little bit better. Jet Li deserves a mention. After seeing Unleashed and Fearless, it was nice to see him actually show his acting chops again. The desire to see him at that acting capacity was high, so it was quite a treat to see him at that caliber once again. After The Forbidden Kingdom and his rather stale performance in that, it's become a bit difficult what to expect from him other than him displaying how talented he is at martial arts. Fortunately, he did a great job in this as he showed just about every emotion in this film at some time or another. His fight scenes were also incredible, but that is kind of a given. Andy Lau also deserves a nod. His character is just so passionate about being honorable and loyal that when things go wrong, his reaction is just explosive. He has some really powerful scenes where he's fighting for what he thinks is right. There's a scene where a play is mocking him and his brothers while he's eating dinner. He begins to laugh, which leads to him crying uncontrollably, and then he begins laughing again. He just managed to pull it off flawlessly and it was incredibly impressive.

The battle scenes didn't pull any punches either. Blood flies across the screen as limbs roll on the ground. It's truly fantastic. They are the highlight of the film as the first half seems to not pull away from the battlefield. The film is also extremely colorful. Every scene is stunningly vibrant. There are so many memorable scenes from the film and half of that is due to how they were shot. There's a scene where Er Hu runs into a coliseum where there are just hundreds of dead bodies lying on the ground and the camera does a 360 degree motion around him capturing his emotions and the devastation that lies around him. It's amazing.

The Warlords is one of the best Chinese war epics I've ever seen. Not that I've seen too many of them, but even in comparison to feudal Japan films, it's one of the best. If you were a fan of films like Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Kahn, The Last Samurai, or Seven Samurai, then this comes highly recommended. It's the type of film that shouldn't be missed by anyone.

Good Movie
I chose this movie because I like Jet Li, but the movie did make me a little angry because I am not used to Jet Li playing a bad guy. I still like Jet Li, but the character itself was of a person who betrayed his friends.

Great movie, little slow in the beginning
There were some slow/shaky parts in the beginning of this movie that I became wary of, but after waiting it out the film developed into something that was amazing and dramatic. There is a lot of action in the movie, but most of it is storyline and dialogue. All of the actors deliver a stellar performance, and the message of the film is strong. I would like to leave one star off because I don't believe it is completely historically accurate, but decided against that because the film was so compelling.