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The Legend of Zu

The Legend of Zu

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: ...
Review: At an hour and fourty-something minutes, The Legend of Zu is a movie too quixotic for its own good. If anything, movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Come Drink With Me show that a more contemplative pacing can suit HK movies just as much as the frenetic. If Tsui Hark had decompressed this movie into a three hour film, I would practically bet my life that it would be among the best fantasy movies ever... Wings of Desire, Fantasia, The Lord of the Rings, etc...

In its present state, Legend of Zu is breathtaking when it's in its element. With a few exceptions (especially the lame rendering of the big bad guy) , the visuals and cgi are stunning in their beauty, even the decidedly cheesy ones. The soundtrack is never as intrusive as it often gets in HK movies. The story is grand, epic, and worthy of pretty much every other (positively) similar adjective. So grand, in fact, it's too much for 1 hr 40 min, as a result, it feels bloated, and as if we're drowning in the ocean of characters, relationships, conflicts, concepts, and histories it constantly pitches towards us (I would also have liked to see more of the human conflicts going on, if only to put the other action in better perspective).

This is definately a movie worth watching -for its ambitions and even just some of the amazing visuals- and even in such an imperfect state, I think with patience and your mind filtering out out some of the irrelevant information, you might even enjoy it for itself.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: ...
Review: At an hour and fourty-something minutes, The Legend of Zu is a movie too quixotic for its own good. If anything, movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Come Drink With Me show that a more contemplative pacing can suit HK movies just as much as the frenetic. If Tsui Hark had decompressed this movie into a three hour film, I would practically bet my life that it would be among the best fantasy movies ever... Wings of Desire, Fantasia, The Lord of the Rings, etc...

In its present state, Legend of Zu is breathtaking when it's in its element. With a few exceptions (especially the lame rendering of the big bad guy) , the visuals and cgi are stunning in their beauty, even the decidedly cheesy ones. The soundtrack is never as intrusive as it often gets in HK movies. The story is grand, epic, and worthy of pretty much every other (positively) similar adjective. So grand, in fact, it's too much for 1 hr 40 min, as a result, it feels bloated, and as if we're drowning in the ocean of characters, relationships, conflicts, concepts, and histories it constantly pitches towards us (I would also have liked to see more of the human conflicts going on, if only to put the other action in better perspective).

This is definately a movie worth watching -for its ambitions and even just some of the amazing visuals- and even in such an imperfect state, I think with patience and your mind filtering out out some of the irrelevant information, you might even enjoy it for itself.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: 80% of the movie is computer graphics.
Review: Here's a great analogy... If you think of "Storm Riders" as being the "Star Wars" of Chinese mythology SPX movies, this might be considered the "Phantom Menance."

Miramax threw tons of money at Tsui Hark to make the Quintessential Chinese mythology SPX movie and just like Lucas, he got so carried away with wowing us with monumental scenes that he seems to have forgotten to tell a good story. People who love to watch movies to explore new exotic lands with magestic visual landscapes and meet a race of immortals, who fly around with swords and have specialized powers, CHECK THIS MOVIE OUT. People who love to be engaged in rich story, should probably stick with "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or "Hero."

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Visual TREAT, but too complex of a story
Review: Here's a great analogy... If you think of "Storm Riders" as being the "Star Wars" of Chinese mythology SPX movies, this might be considered the "Phantom Menance."

Miramax threw tons of money at Tsui Hark to make the Quintessential Chinese mythology SPX movie and just like Lucas, he got so carried away with wowing us with monumental scenes that he seems to have forgotten to tell a good story. People who love to watch movies to explore new exotic lands with magestic visual landscapes and meet a race of immortals, who fly around with swords and have specialized powers, CHECK THIS MOVIE OUT. People who love to be engaged in rich story, should probably stick with "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or "Hero."

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Visual TREAT, but too complex of a story
Review: Here's a great analogy... If you think of "Storm Riders" as being the "Star Wars" of Chinese mythology SPX movies, this might be considered the "Phantom Menance."

Miramax threw tons of money at Tsui Hark to make the Quintessential Chinese mythology SPX movie and just like Lucas, he got so carried away with wowing us with monumental scenes that he seems to have forgotten to tell a good story. People who love to watch movies to explore new exotic lands with magestic visual landscapes and meet a race of immortals, who fly around with swords and have specialized powers, CHECK THIS MOVIE OUT. People who love to be engaged in rich story, should probably stick with "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or "Hero."

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Surprisingly entertaining
Review: I don't watch many kung-fu imports, but I watch a ton of digital fansub anime as I am a heavy anime fan. I came into watching this movie expecting nothing, having no previouse knowledge of this movie or it's previouse incarnation (That might be a lie, I now think I watched part of it on cinimax, but it didn't look anything special). After saying that, I am somewhat impressed with this movie. For starters, the special effects are indeed cool. Not exactly star wars episode 1 or 2 here, but there are a ton of effects and they are all well exicuted. How ever one must accept the fact that this movie seems to be told in fantasy story book faction, so perception and realism is extreamly skewed (and there are some bad or simplistic set designs). There is not a whole lot of character depth, nore is there any auditory explenation's for many actions, so imagination is still needed, but that happens alot in anime too and that is what I like about it. It's crouching tiger meets dragon ball Z.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Horrible --;
Review: I watched cuz I liked Ekin and Louis.. and man.. what a mistake!
The whole film seems as if it happened inside a computer.
Confusing, too graphic, and too obvious that it's computer graphics.. --;

Don't watch it... but if you have to, just borrow it from any Chinese video store.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: 80% of the movie is computer graphics.
Review: If you like animated action movies, you might like this one. I prefered action movies acted by human beings. The computer graphics is not top notch as that of Lord of rings. It looks more like a painting! I just finished watching the first 15 minutes of this film when I turned it off. "Storm Riders" also used computer graphics but it was used on a smaller scale. The fighting scenes and the plot are much better.
It is too bad that I cannot return this film.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Impressive Special Effects but no convincing story
Review: Like the title says, the special effects, although sometimes a bit too colorful for my taste, were very impressive. But they are the only thing this movie got going for itself. The story was one of the most confusing I ever witnessed. Perhaps some of it would make some sense to a connaisseur of Chinese legends but I was completely lost. Fans of Martial Arts movies will be equally disappointed by the lack thereof. There is only a single and short fight which involves martial arts (between Hollow, Joy and Thunder). All the other fights are resolved by overpowering the enemy with ones magic and are mostly overshadowed by special effects. My guess is that Tsui Hark got a bit carried away by his special effects and in the process neglected the other components of the movie, mainly the story.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Nice to Look At, but Utterly Empty
Review: This is a great film -- if you're 10 years old, that is. If you happen to be older than 10, you'll find the story lacking, the visual effects overly done to the point of being gratutious, and the action to be horribly unreal. Hong Kong movies have recently deferred to these CGI spectacles in recent years, with actors covered in a sea of CGI, wireworks, and such elaborate special effects that they don't need to know actual martial arts. The result? A standard Hollywood movie on par with anything Keanu Reeves has done. To wit: Nice to look at, but utterly empty.

Note: To the previous reviewer who claims to know so much about Asian/Hong Kong movies -- You don't have a true understand of Asian films, my friend. Your rant is based on anti-American bias and blind devotion to Hong Kong films. The Hong Kong film industry is like any other industry, if not worst -- when they see something that makes money, expect 100 more exactly like it in the next couple of months. Only in Hong Kong could two -- count them, TWO -- sequels could show up in the same year to a successful movie in the PREVIOUS year. Say what you will about Hollywood's output, but they ARE the pioneers of moviemaking. All of the CGI and effects in LEGEND OF ZU were tossed around a zillion Hollywood movies for YEARS before they ever made it to Hong Kong. To say that ALL Hollywood movies are born out of Hong Kong/Asia is to simply show your ignorance and blind devotion to all things Asian, and negativity towards all things American.

My grade: 2 out of 5.


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