Confucius

[Drunk Monk]

Chow Yun Fat in the lead, rocking a serious Daoist beard. It's a big period epic, with lots of huge sets, CGI battles, and even some swordfights. There's lots of beautiful expansive scenery and gorgeous costumes. I didn't realize Imperial China was so lavish in 5th century BCE. Zhou Xun is in it, second billing, as a notorious concubine who seduces her way into power, a perfect part for her and those spacey seductive monstrous eyes of her. Her role is teased in the beginning, and then she appears much later in the film (it's 2+ hours) and has a bewitching scene with Chow that is the centerpiece of the flick, and then exits promptly, leaving any viewer to say '2nd billing for that?' Chow is cool, but most of his lines come off like 'Confucius say' fortune-cookie wisdom, way to patriotic and fawning over China's greatest philosopher.

This film didn't need a sword fight. There were plenty of sword fights. What it needed was Chow in a white suit shooting up stuff with pistols.