A Battle of Wits 墨攻
This is not really a review, more like my thoughts on the movie after I watched it. Of course there will be some spoilers, so don't read if you don't want to have surprises.
As you may know, it happens that I watch a movie because of its plot, but most likely I choose my movies after who is acting in it, and this time I watched it mainly because of Siwon (♥), even though I also like Andy Lau and Fan Bing Bing.
Go here to read about the plot.
Not my kind of movie actually, I don't like war and politics in ancient China, but I thought I should give it a try, and the movie started promising, it kind of built up your expectations, that something great will happen, big battles, you'll get to know the characters and see their development (being stronger and wiser), final highlights of the film and so on. Andy Lau's character, Gak Lei (Cantonese pronunciation), was a bit of a weirdo; he is good at war strategy, but yet he is a rookie on it (huh?), that wasn't too convincing. You don't get to know a lot either about his background, I wanted the movie to unfold more of the facts of who he was and where he come from (why the Mozis didn't want to send someone and why he wanted to come).
To me Fan Bing Bing's character was kind of meaningsless to the story, more than the hero had to have a girl admiring him... kind of annoying. The same as in Transformers 2 or 3 when the girl was only there to look sexy and nothing else. There was indeed one sweet moment when the two of them were escaping from the enemies and they jumped into the water, afterwards Andy carried Bing Bing on his back and she didn't want to walk on her own feet. Other than that... I didn't feel the lovestory was necessary or even believable. I mean, come on, it's a war you're fighting and the only thing important to the girl was to make gifts for her hero....? It will work if it's a shoujo manga or she was a girl whose main purpose in life was to be married, but not a character who didn't want to be looked down on because she's a woman, with an mission to accomplish. And then, this unnecessary lovestory had an even more unnecessary ending, where he was trying to rescue her, but failed, because I-don't-know-what-he-was-doing... waiting for better times maybe? If you put in a girl in a movie because you need a girl (for people to look at), then don't kill her. T_T
Siwon's character, prince Leung, was - oh, totally unexpected! - my favourite (I'm telling you, I'm not biased!). At first though, I was horrified, because he looked like someone we would call a "strutt" in Swedish. I'm not sure which word to use in English, but it's a person who think too highly of himself, arrogant and vain, like a cock strutting around and feeling his own importance. Anyway, I guess that's not more than fitting with a prince who in his whole life has been surrounded with people who only talk what he wants to hear, showing him what he wants to see and so on. He thought that he was the number one airbow shooter, because the one actually superior to him always let him win. But how to like such a character?? Even if it's Siwon... T_T;
He's handsome of course. But then he kind of changed, he saw what war did to people, he was affected by the injustice his own people put on the enemy and he agreed more and more with Gak Lei (Andy), to the point where he "betrayed" his own father and helped Gak Lei to escape and even wanted to follow Gak Lei as a disciple, but Gak Lei told him to go back, because he was a prince and his people needed a strong and fair ruler with "peace" in his mind.
But then suddenly things happened really fast in the movie - okay, I admit it, I went to the bathroom for a moment and when I came back they were talking about a funeral. I was like, whose funeral!!!? Wait a minute, the prince is dead? How did THAT happen!!???? >.< I had to rewind to watch again: when Gak Lei parted with prince Leung, one of the general was commanding the soldiers to fire the airbows against Gak Lei, and the prince (what took him so long to walk away from there??) was killed by mistake. T_T
I kind of lost interest in the movie after they killed my prince, but yeah, of course I watched until the end, but with the mood I just wanted to be done with it.... So the ending was like, the city Leung was the winner of the war, but Gak Lei kind of lost (his love and he wasn't happy about the victory either I think), he saved some orphans and left the place and went on with his mission. And the king of Leung (who I think was the true villain) was killed five years later by someone. End of story.
I didn't hate the movie even though they killed Siwon; it was enjoyable at times and I haven't been watching Andy Lau act for a long long time, and I think the filming was good, wellmade, different from other kung fu and battle movies, more realistic and not trying to beautify violence, battles or war... Still, I regret a little buying it, because it's not something I will look at and think "that was certainly a nice movie, let's watch it again".