3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not THAT bad, July 15, 2005
This review is from: Dream of a Warrior (DVD)
Sigh... Okay... it WAS pretty campy. The switch between scenes was pretty confusing and the story was a bit weak. But, c'mon... what chopsake movie was ever billed as high drama... the combination of high tech weapons combined with traditional and a little sorcery, time travel, romance and a music track that could have come from Love Story??? The perfect movie for cigar night with the boys (or girls). Oh, and we can't forget to give kudos to whoever did the subtitling... That (unintended) humor alone adds a star. Bottom line - if you don't expect high art, it is an entertaining flick.... it doesn't make much sense, but it is entertaining :) Enjoy!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Dream of a Plot, August 26, 2005
This review is from: Dream of a Warrior (DVD)
I'm writing this review while watching the movie, to help me document just what's going on. Even then, I'm having trouble.
Remember Leon Lai from such films as Bullets of Love? Infernal Affairs III(snicker)? Me either. And unless you study Chinese Popstars, you won't.
Regardless of fame, Leon Lai plays a cop in this time travel adventure, who is sent to the past to rescue a girl named Nam-Hong, daughter of Doc Jang (who invented the time travel device). He gets trapped in a pocket of space filled with gladiators and bounty hunters. He's gotta rescue the girl and return to the present/alternate timeline or else the machine will be destroyed by an evil cult leader. Confused? This is almost exactly what the back of the box says. If this is what the movie company thought would sell this disc, you know it's not gonna win any oscars anytime soon.
This thing starts off quick, dropping you in a story with characters you neither care about or know anything about. We see a police chase, a crazy dream, a news broadcast, and a gladiator fight before we get into the main story. I think. There are two lovers, princess rose and the warrior dean. I don't get why they show this, because even though an evil sorcerer wants them dead. I think.
This movie has a decent art direction, with the fantasy timeline showing great detail from the flashy officers uniforms to the nazi-like gladiator uniforms. The future reminds me of the house in a clockwork orange though. Very sixties.
The character design is lacking, with some of their full story revealed, others we barely know anything about. In fact, they do the videogame stat thing (i.e. pop up video style text that says 'Sum Dum Gai: he is strong warrior, with clear mind. he is third class kleebokmba) That leads me to the next point. Unless you speak cantonese or mandarin, or korean, you won't be able to stop yourself from laughing. The subtitles are ridiculous! They stop for a long time on stupid things (like doctor jang giving a soliloquy, and it saying 'I need a guy for 45 seconds) or have broken english and backwards grammar, if they spell things right that is.
The audio is all over the place:
In Korean, it's muted and fuzzy, with little or no effects or music.
In Mandarin, you have a better quality, but not much better on sfx and music. Also, since most of the actors speak korean (except Lai) you get the bruce lee syndrome.
In Cantonese, you have the best quality, with it's 5.1 Dolby (which rivals the Goonies, pre-remastery).
The video quality is horrible. It says on the back of the box:
MPEG-2 Encoded. It looks it. With visuals that look as though they were shot in late 70's, early 80's, with colors and styles to boot. Watch it, then remember it was made in 2001. There is grain and texture, specks, and fuzz.
The Special Effects aren't that special. The sorcerer has this tentacle attack that looks MS Paint-y. The citys are cheap scans. And the Praxus was the cheesiest monster, he even disappeared when he died.
I've talked about this too long. No special features, a running time of 84 minutes, terrible acting, scripts.
Save yourself an hour and a half. Go watch samurai fiction, krull, conan and willow, warriors of heaven and earth, alive, ghost in the shell, and all the other movies this one rips off style points from.
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