Sunday 11 September 2011

My Kingdom (Da Wu Sheng) (Taiwan) - Wow Beginning , Crap in the End

I just watch the movie, My Kingdom (Da Wu Sheng) last week and all i can say is, how can a movie so full of great ideas and good beginning with best drama actors in Taiwan today have a disappointing outcome in the end.
Synopsis:
The movie started off with 2 orphans Yi Long (Wu Chun) & Er-Kui (Han Gen) of different background learning chinese opera  under a strict, dedicate and strong principle Master Yu (veteran, Yuen Biao) in the early 1920s. Their master has earned the famed "Greatest Opera Performer" from the Manchu Emperor after his performance in front of the emperor. However, during a night of celebration, another opera Master, Yue (Yu Rongguang) from Shanghai came for a duel and won due to intervention by Yi Long. After the lost, Master Yu has to break his spear & ended his career as an opera performer. During his years, he continue to teach Yi Long & Er-Kui all his martial arts trade. Secretly, both orphans promise to take revenge on behalf of their master after diligently learn up their master skills. Upon graduating, both went on quest for revenge and successfully defeated Master Yue during a duel in Shanghai. Yi Long replace Master Yue as main opera performer while Er-Kui ended up falling in-love with Master Yue's apprentice via lover, Mulan (played by Barbie Hsu). However, Er-Kui has decided to ventured off to Peking to assassinate the royal's children to revenge his own family death by the royal's father.
Review
The first 30mins of the movie was great, full of colors, suspense, great acting skills by veteran Yuen Biao and Yu Rongguang, great battle and the highlight of the battle involve both Yi Long & Er-Kui against Master Yue. The action is breathtaking (choreograph by Sammo Hung) with fast spear actions, drum against the backdrop and plenty of drama on stage. However, that are all the exciting parts there is to the movie. The remaining 1 hour plus is absolutely full of weak plot, weak dialog and mostly weak editing. For instance, there is no mentioning of master Yu death, just some verbal dialog with Yu Long crying. Then, the next scene showing Mulan shows affection to Yi Long and then suddenly showing interest to Er-Kui. It is extremely confusing with scenes suddenly cut-off and a new scene emerge. The worst case would be to endure the acting of both Wu Chun and Han Gen. While both tried pretty hard to be loving brothers, but there was no emotion and love lost between both. Even made worse is the chemistry between both Mulan and Er-Kui, there is none. In the end, the film started with a wow but ended with a boo with most viewers coming out shaking their head and laughing off such ridicule plot.
Verdict:
I give this a 1 star out of 5 (only because of the fight scene)

No comments:

Post a Comment