REVIEW: ‘The Warlords’ (2007)

Not quite historical war epic or martial arts actioner, director Peter Chan’s THE WARLORDS is a gritty anti-war film starring Jet Li, Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro that is inspired by Chang Cheh’s 1973 kung fu classic THE BLOOD BROTHERS. It features pulse-pounding, semi-realistic battle action never before seen in a Chinese film, vivid imagery from one of China’s most violent periods in history and a melancholy story with moments of gripping intensity in what is otherwise a routine saga of heroic bloodshed, brothers-in-arms and vengeance.

Both THE WARLORDS and THE BLOOD BROTHERS were based on a famous assassination of a Qing Dynasty governor in 1870. Ni Kuang’s 1973 script developed a compelling back story set against the bloody Taiping Rebellion, suggesting that the governor was one of three friends who had broken a blood pact for love of a woman and the assassination was an act of revenge. It was a story tailor-made for Chang Cheh and he worked it into a stylish and lean genre masterpiece that helped earn Ti Lung a Best Actor nod at the 11th Golden Horse Awards.

Although rarely referenced directly, the Taiping Rebellion is a major factor in setting the tone for THE WARLORDS, more so than Chang’s film. History records that from 1850 to 1864, 20 to 30 million Chinese lost their lives due to warfare and starvation as a direct result of a rebellion against the Qing Dynasty led by a Christian convert named Hong Xiuquan. The despair and suffering felt by millions during this period is represented in the film, although no where nearly adequate enough to do the subject justice. That will have to wait for another film and another filmmaker concerned more with the history of China than the history of Chinese cinema.

Best known previously for romance films like PERHAPS LOVE (2005), Peter Chan partly took on this subject to revitalize the emotional intensity that existed between lead characters in the films of John Woo, in turn inspired by Chang Cheh’s works. The love triangle inherent in Ni Kuang’s script for THE BLOOD BROTHERS provided Chan with a familiar angle and yet this is ultimately the weakest part about THE WARLORDS.

In one of his best acting performances to date, Jet Li exudes a commanding presence as Pang Qing-yun, a Qing general who escapes the complete destruction of his army through an act of cowardice. After holing up with a peasant woman named Lian (Xu Jing-lei), he joins forces with a band of outlaws led by Zhao Er-hu (Andy Lau) and Jiang Wu-yang (Takeshi Kaneshiro). The trio forms a blood pact by slicing the throats of three luckless travelers. Pang convinces them to join the Qing army and becomes their commander as they begin a bloody five-year campaign to suppress a widespread rebellion.

The blood oath becomes tested by Pang’s ruthless leadership and his growing love for Lian, who happens to be Zhao’s wife. All the while, Pang and his army remain mere pawns of three conspiring officials in the Qing court who intend to consolidate their power once the rebellion has been suppressed.

What holds this story together is the relationship between Pang, Zhao and Jiang. It’s vital that we care about and understand their bond and its eventual break. This is made difficult by the way that the film rushes past their early scenes together without adequately spelling out how this bond is formed beyond the ritual. Lian’s role as the bond breaker is completely mismanaged. It’s never made clear whether it is love for Lian, duty to the Empress Dowager or even self-preservation that motivates Pang to turn on his friends.

The script gives the three leads plenty of emotional angst to chew on but little depth or subtlety. We never get to know them beyond external shows of emotion. This is likely one reason why the performances all seem a tad hollow. Kaneshiro by far suffers the worst case of vacuous puppy dog stares I have ever witnessed. After his awful performance in HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, I am convinced he is one of the most overrated actors of his generation. He keeps getting starring roles in these blockbuster Chinese films and falling flat. He must still be a screen idol to adoring female fans.

Andy Lau is marginally better. He’s capable of good acting but I suspect his character was poorly developed. Lau doesn’t seem comfortable in his role.

Only Jet Li seems to have found his stride with his character which is ironic considering he’s better known for his screen fighting, unlike his co-stars. It’s a complex character that can be seen as heroic and pitiful at the same time and Li strikes the right balance in his interpretation. What Li may be remembered for isn’t his performance but his paycheck. He reportedly earned a record $13 million, nearly half of the film’s $40 million budget. For that kind of money, relative to the earnings of other Chinese actors, he should have played all three leading roles simultaneously.

It’s a little difficult to tell what kind of film THE WARLORDS is trying to be. It’s certainly not a martial arts movie like Chang’s film despite Ching Siu-tung’s choreography. Limited military-style fighting action is perhaps more realistic than we’ve yet seen in any Chinese film and is closer in style and maturity to Hollywood epics like BRAVEHEART and GETTYSBURG. Yet Ching is still unable to keep the action real enough for it to be taken seriously. In one scene Ching has Kaneshiro swinging around on a rope in a canyon fight eerily similar to a fight scene in THE BANQUET. Later, Li is seen slicing off the feet of half a dozen enemies in a single stroke during a pitched battle where he single-handedly wipes out a line of cannon. This latter scene is part of the film’s 10-minute showpiece sequence where Li leads his army of 800 men against a superior force of 5000 armed with rifles and cannon. It’s a great scene with Li in a one-against-many battle while wielding a guandao. It’s just not realistic, in contrast to the tone that Chan tries to set throughout his movie.

This leads to a subject worth discussing briefly and that is the challenge Chinese filmmakers have in filming realistic period action. Because of the dominance of screen fighting grounded in Chinese opera and traditional or performance-oriented wushu, it is seemingly impossible for any Chinese filmmakers to shoot a period fight sequence without stylized exaggeration, even when guns are involved. In a normal martial arts movie it’s not a problem because audiences expect it. Yet when filmmakers try to make a serious historical drama, the inability to match it with appropriately realistic fight work becomes quite obvious, as in the case of THE WARLORDS. It’s no wonder Western distributors often do not know how to market films like this. Should they sell it as a standard Jet Li martial arts movie or a period drama? Honestly, I don’t think Chinese filmmakers know what their films are when they try to have it both ways.

Big assets to the film include the production design of Peter Chan’s longtime collaborator Yee Chung-man and Arthur Wong whose capable camera work was previously wasted on Kurt Wimmer’s sci-fi turkey ULTRAVIOLET. They manage to create an earthy, sepia toned look with intricate yet muted details that Russian and European historical epics are well known for. This is a welcome contrast to the crisp and gaudy circus colors too often on display in Chinese martial epics like CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER.

A complimentary soundtrack serves the film well except when a PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN-like theme erupts during Jet Li’s charge of the cannon line.

For all its faults and there are more than a few, THE WARLORDS offers a much-needed change of direction for the current Chinese period epic trend. Led by Zhang Yimou, the emphasis has been on stately and formal martial dramas with picturesque acts of violence set amid ornate palaces and flowery costumes. Like every Chinese director it seems, Peter Chan is still obsessed with grandeur but at least of a different variety where a touch of realism gets tossed into the action and art direction. Added to his recent work on the LEGEND OF SHAOLIN KUNG FU series, Ching Siu-tung appears to be broadening his repertoire beyond fantasy wirework and it will be interesting to see what he does in future.

Related Topics: Ching Siu-Tung, gallery, guandao, Jet Li, Qing Dynasty, The Warlords (2007)