Dynasty Warriors (2021)

[Drunk Monk]

Dynasty Warriors 

This is based on a massive video game franchise, which is based on one of my all time fav epics, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. For those of us who know it, this is the battle for Hulao pass. This is the tale of Guan Yu, a legendary figure that I literally worship, along with the CFs. He’s the patron saint of warriors and sat on the Lam Kwoon altar that we bowed to before every class. 

At first I wasn’t keen on how he was depicted. His red face is interpreted as a skin condition, his beard wasn’t majestic enough and his face was sallow, not full as I imagine him. He’s played by a Kpop Star, Han Geng and that just doesn’t seem right. But he grew on me, especially when the battles ensued.

Louis Koo is killing it as Lu Bu. Liu Bei, Cao Cao, and especially Zhang Fei was well cast but I don’t know the actors yet. Lam Suet is perfectly reprehensible as Dong Zhou. His is a great part. He gets to wear opulent costumes and sit around being snuggled by concubines as he barks evil commands. It’s a dream role. 

This is the video game take however, so there’s magic. Like lots of magic. Lu Bu’s pole axe shoots lighting. The Guan Dao is a flame thrower. Liu’s twin jian control waves of water. When they bang their weapons on the ground, dozens - sometimes hundreds - of infantry get blown into the air. The finale fight seems ripped right out of the video game with ridiculous physics and Qi blasts. Here, you can drift a horse like a Furious super car, on a river wave no less.

The story races along to fever plot points that audiences are just supposed to know because the source epic is common knowledge across Asia. I never played the video game so the references go past me, but I can imagine how some s ends seem ripped right off the game.

There’s some spectacular landscape panoramas, and a lot of cgi. Great costumes and sets. Wonderful cartoon weapons. Extravagant big battlefield and walled city siege scenes. Some of the ultravi was fresh, especially the opening battle which had some delightful weapons work and possessed zombies.

This is all about sword fights. There’s some great stuff. It’s fantasy fights, on the level of superheroes, but once you accept the ridiculousness of it, it’s tasty ultravi. I got some genuine chuckles on how the choreo was done - the finale fight is absurd tho. The Cao Cao v Liu Bei sword fight is absurdly scenic and quite enjoyable for that alone as long as you can accept all the flying about. If you don’t know the story, I’m not confident there’s enough delivered for it to make that much sense. It’ll feel short sheeted because it’s assumed you know it well enough to fill the copious gaps. I’m not sure how well it works for someone I initiated.

DOOM recommended. Although I should warn you that this doesn’t end. It’s just a chapter and leaves it all wide open for a sequel. And I’ll watch that too if it gets made.