Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon (China, 2008)
Rating: Nominally fresh 6 out of 10 tomatoes.

It's an ancient China period piece, warring clans trying to unite China, armies, generals, heroes, blah, blah, blah. And Andy Lau. What film has he not been in lately? Fortunately he's a pretty good actor, and his presence in films always seems to make them better. The film I give a nominal fresh rating for being competent, but it's not very memorable. So much so that its flaws aren't even worth pointing out.

It's about two kinsmen (Andy Lau and Sammo Hung) from the same village who join one clan's army. They have big dreams of returning home heroes. But only one rises quickly through the ranks to become a top general in the clan. But the fighting just goes on and on, and the movie makes a sudden jump in time, perhaps a commentary on the futility of war, as the characters see their dreams fizzle while their aspirations go unfulfilled.

The bits and pieces of the film are good, but as a whole, it's flimsy and can't hold the amount of water it tries to contain.

And more period piece madness:

An Empress and the Warriors 江山美人 (China, 2008)
Rating: Rotten 4 out of 10 tomatoes.

I sat through this movie in the theater just saying over and over to myself, "weak . . . weak." As it happened, it was a pretty bad movie, you know, weak, but it was mercifully short, and that one redeeming factor, at least, stops me from bitterly spitting bile reviewing it.

The movie is set in old China where clans battled it out with their armies. The story centers around the daughter of a king, who is reluctantly made empress to avert a power struggle between factions in the clan after the king dies.

The factions still have it in for each other, and the faction that supports her, including a top general who happens to be her childhood mentor and friend – and perhaps crush – undertakes training her in the arts of war. The opposing faction are one-dimensional "bad guys", who are painfully predictable and unambiguously, unredeemingly . . . scheeeeming. All they needed was a trademark evil laugh.

The flaws in this movie are facially evident from the outset. I remember that 10 minutes into the movie, I thought "if this is what I can expect, this is going to be a bad movie". Things don't make sense, like "why is that guy there when he's supposed to be on the battlefield?", "why is the king alone when he is mortally wounded?". The movie is riddled with inconsistencies and illogic like that. It's an incompetent movie. For instance, inconsistencies in the depth of water is incompetent. Illogical scene jumps and people running as fast as horses is incompetent. The empress reverting to a pouty little girl is just annoying.

The acting, for such amateurish material, is pretty good, and that helps pull the movie through (even though it doesn't pull through). I can't recommend this movie to anyone wanting to watch a good Chinese period movie. I would only recommend it to someone who is willing to put up with a fluff Chinese period movie when everything else at the rental store was out.