Action choreographer on Hero, House Of Flying Daggers, The Warlords and far too many others to mention, Tony Ching Siu-tung is back in the director’s chair for the first time in five years – but is this the triumphant return we were hoping for…?

Kelly Chen (Breaking News, Tokyo Raiders, Infernal Affairs) plays Yen Feier, charged with becoming Empress when her father dies in the fight to save her kingdom. Her devoted aid and loyal commander Muyong Xuehu (Donnie Yen, Flash Point, S.P.L.: Kill Zone, Seven Swords, Hero) begins to train her to take on her role, little knowing that she has more to fear than rival kingdoms – an ambitious cousin Wu Ba (Guo Xiao Dong, The Warlords, Missing) plans to assassinate her to claim the empire as his own.

Saved by a mysterious recluse, Duan Lanquan (Leon Li, Seven Swords, Infernal Affairs III, Three), Yen finds herself falling in love with him and his simpler life. But chaos reigns within her council as Wu Ba intends to use her absence to take over, and warring kingdoms continue to plague her territories. Soon Yen realises she must make a choice between the duty of protecting her subjects, and the dreams of a life she could have had…

Most readers will recognise Ching Siu-tung’s name as action choreographer on recent Chinese/Hong Kong blockbusters such as Zhang Yimou’s Hero, House Of Flying Daggers and Curse Of The Golden Flower, not to mention Peter Chan’s grittier historical vision The Warlords or Stephen Chow’s hilarious Shaolin Soccer, but fewer may be aware of his importance to the Hong Kong New Wave cinema in the mid-80s (unless you’re a regular visitor to the site).

With films like Duel To The Death, A Chinese Ghost Story and Swordsman II, Siu-tung became one of the most prominent directors of the era, continually breaking new ground in techniques, particularly in ‘wire-fu’, but more importantly in how he visualised scenes, creating (often bizarre) visual ideas that simply have no parallel in cinema (though many have been referenced since). By the early 90s he’d become the hardest working action choreographer in Hong Kong cinema, involved in pretty much every notable wire-fu and action film released.

His work more recently for Yimou and Chan has only proved that Siu-tung still has the ability to create exciting and imaginative sequences like no other.

Unfortunately, that only raises expectation on his first film as director in five years, and the bar is unrealistically high. An Empress and The Warriors is yet another ‘historical’, wuxia-powered vehicle in a market increasingly flooded with them…

There are some standout scenes, particularly when the assassins attempt to get to the Empress through Duan’s elaborate interweaving tree house of a home (which from the start always looked a little too detailed to simply remain the backdrop for the romantic bits). Superbly orchestrated and choreographed, it’s exactly what we’d expect from Siu-tung, but the truth is we see far too little of this side of him. The assassins provide much of the more fantastical, wire-fu scenes in the film (rather as they did in Curse Of The Golden Flower), and there’s some nice work in battle fields, particularly when one side of the army armed with shields join up to create ramps to tip the other side’s chariots – but it’s all a little sparing used. Often Siu-tung seems unable to decide whether he’s aiming for the more down-to-earth, gritty style of The Warlords, or the more fantasy led style of Hero. Perhaps the real point is this film doesn’t share the budget of either, leaving Siu-tung unable to pull off the battle scenes in the same way he did during The Warlords.

Instead the film centres on the key roles of Yen, Muyong and Duan, and the rather insipid love triangle that ensues. Never Siu-tung’s strongpoint, it highlights the greatest flaw in the movie: that like much of today’s generation of wuxia-inspired movies it just takes itself too seriously.

Since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, films have become increasingly melodramatic, hysterical, over-acted and unable to do what their counterparts did in the early 90s: namely laugh at themselves. It reflects the opening up for Hong Kong directors and producers to enter the Chinese market, it’s a larger audience, but one that has very different needs. Often the film relies totally on its cast to pull off that melodrama, and it’s here An Empress and The Warriors fails most…

Kelly Chen is utterly unconvincing as either a princess or warrior, Donnie Yen continues to be unimpressive as a lead, and doesn’t get fight sequences worthy of his talents. Leaving it down to the oft-criticised Leon Li to actually give a pretty reasonable performance – but with nothing to bounce off! The attempt to depict the surreptitious politics of power sound naïve, particularly coming so soon after The Warlords, the romance falls flat, and you can’t help but feel the whole thing would have been easier to take had it been a little more tongue-in-cheek.

An Empress and The Warriors is not a terrible movie, it’s better than his least feature, the straight-to-video Steven Seagal vehicle Belly Of The Beast, but however unfair the comparison (and I know it’s because I’m such a fan) it’s not the return to form from Ching Siu-tung we’ve been waiting for.

An Empress and The Warriors will be released by Cine Asia on 23 March 2009.

DVD details

Distributor: Cine Asia (UK)

Cine Asia UK release comes with a great transfer of the film, but sadly little in the way of extras to get your teeth into. Simply a 'Making Of' featurette and the original trailer. Now is that really going to get you too excited?

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This entry was published by Andy H on Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under China, Films, Hong Kong, Martial arts, Reviews, Wuxia / Swordplay. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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