Flying Swords of Dragon Gate

Flying Swords of Dragon Gate must be watched in stereoscopic 3D to be properly appreciated. Its abundant visual spectacle is so clearly tuned for 3D that watching the film in anything less would mean you're not watching the real film at all. In 2D, the CGI backgrounds & objects are distractingly bad, robbing many scenes of their drama and gravitas. But in 3D, somehow it all works and you're transported into a vibrant, gorgeous world delivered with maximum visual panache. If can watch this film in 3D (it's not hard -- Your smartphone & a Google Cardboard VR headset will give you full brightness 3D that's brighter than the cinema's 3D!), then this is a must see. If you can't, then don't even bother with this film.

Sorry but I was very disappointed with this movie. I do like Jet Li and I think he is an excellent Martial Artist, but you wouldn't know it from this film. Set three years after Dragon Inn, the innkeeper Jade has disappeared and a new inn has risen from the ashes but occupied by marauders, who hope to find lost city and treasure buried in the desert somewhere. The way the film was directed made it overly confusing to follow and as others have said the film relies much to much on CGI. The fight sequences were over long and at times ridiculous. I know some Chinese films over use wire work and CGI but this one took it even further to show the characters flying through the air having and having amazing powers so that a flick of the hand could cause inanimate objects to do whatever they wanted. Yes despite these amazing powers they were in the end killed by relatively simple means. The sword fights were also ridiculous with a never ending stream of knives appearing from nowhere. This is NOT a Martial Arts film but rather a fantasy more like watching a Video game than a movie. It is a shame because there were some good actors in this film, but the director seems to have let things go to his head and lost the plot. This is one DVD for the bargain basket I am afraid.

Sorry but I was very disappointed with this movie. I do like Jet Li and I think he is an excellent Martial Artist, but you wouldn't know it from this film. Set three years after Dragon Inn, the innkeeper Jade has disappeared and a new inn has risen from the ashes but occupied by marauders, who hope to find lost city and treasure buried in the desert somewhere. The way the film was directed made it overly confusing to follow and as others have said the film relies much to much on CGI. The fight sequences were over long and at times ridiculous. I know some Chinese films over use wire work and CGI but this one took it even further to show the characters flying through the air having and having amazing powers so that a flick of the hand could cause inanimate objects to do whatever they wanted. Yes despite these amazing powers they were in the end killed by relatively simple means. The sword fights were also ridiculous with a never ending stream of knives appearing from nowhere. This is NOT a Martial Arts film but rather a fantasy more like watching a Video game than a movie. It is a shame because there were some good actors in this film, but the director seems to have let things go to his head and lost the plot. This is one DVD for the bargain basket I am afraid.

The first of Tsui's wuxai epics I have seen. Has a very gripping plot with twists you can see happening and some that come out of nowhere leaving you thinking "I didn't see that coming." I personally loved how the plot came about and left the viewer surprised, a popular review mentions that the film failed to use it's best asset in Jet Li. I disagree mightily, Epics in general are about the grand story and not the over saturation of a single character. If anything (while I admit I have not seen others in the Dragon Inn series) I felt the story wasn't quite big enough. Especially with how the opening scene led you to believe it was going. It could have also done with a slight bit more character development. The action scenes were amazing, definitely no complaints there. I felt that one in particular near the ending was a bit over the top, but Tsui was lured into using 3D technology as much as possible. Xun Zhao gave the best acting performance and stood out for her strong delivery and dry persona that told the story of her character. She was also able to display other emotions well when the time was needed. Very solid performance from her. Kwan Lun-Mei was also very effective in her role as the Tatar leader and displayed a cool dark screen presence. Overall, I rated the movie very high as it was intelligent and had some suspenseful elements that spoke to the story telling which is saying quite a bit as it still had a bit of room for improvement. True Score: 8.1

The first of Tsui's wuxai epics I have seen. Has a very gripping plot with twists you can see happening and some that come out of nowhere leaving you thinking "I didn't see that coming." I personally loved how the plot came about and left the viewer surprised, a popular review mentions that the film failed to use it's best asset in Jet Li. I disagree mightily, Epics in general are about the grand story and not the over saturation of a single character. If anything (while I admit I have not seen others in the Dragon Inn series) I felt the story wasn't quite big enough. Especially with how the opening scene led you to believe it was going. It could have also done with a slight bit more character development. The action scenes were amazing, definitely no complaints there. I felt that one in particular near the ending was a bit over the top, but Tsui was lured into using 3D technology as much as possible. Xun Zhao gave the best acting performance and stood out for her strong delivery and dry persona that told the story of her character. She was also able to display other emotions well when the time was needed. Very solid performance from her. Kwan Lun-Mei was also very effective in her role as the Tatar leader and displayed a cool dark screen presence. Overall, I rated the movie very high as it was intelligent and had some suspenseful elements that spoke to the story telling which is saying quite a bit as it still had a bit of room for improvement. True Score: 8.1

Usually Tsui Hark does a good job in directing action movies, but it seems that he tried to bite off a bit too much off the cake with this particular project. Why? Well, because the movie in its striving to be an epic swordsman's tale, just turned out to be a mediocre story that wanted to accomplish too much and delivered very little. This is a wire-fu movie in all of wire-fu's glory. Is that bad? Well, not necessarily, however, the extended usage of the wires in the movie ended up being a bit too much as people were constantly in the air and all over the place. It just seemed too strained. The fighting and martial arts was right on the spot, though. Thumbs up on that part. They managed to pull that off quite nicely. However, and yes there is a however here as well, there was just too many weapons breaking into pieces and flying all over the place, but miraculously most people were able to parry all these projectiles. Again, it ended up being too much and too forced. Personally, I ended up being irritated at this, as just about every person in the movie was a martial arts 'superhero' of sorts, capable of performing grand stunts or blurring maneuvers with weapons. Story-wise, then "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate" wasn't overly impressive. The story was easy enough to follow, but Tsui Hark tried to implement a bit too many angles on the story, adding too many different elements of people with various backgrounds and reasons for being at the inn. Which ultimately, and sadly, turned out to be a little bit of a jumpy and not overly continuously well-told storyline. As for the people hired to portray the various roles, then they had managed to put together a rather good ensemble of Chinese cast. There were some good performances, both acting-wise and martial arts-wise. If you enjoy these Chinese tall stories of epic battles, sword fights and martial arts, then you might find some enjoyment in "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate", although I will say that there are far better and more impressive movies out there in the same genre. This is not Tsui Hark's best work, far from it actually.