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kateelliottThis one took forever because I kept getting an error message every time I tried to post it. I had to retype by hand. Weird.
Warriors of Heaven and Earth
On paper this had everything I love in an historical film with fantastical elements:
handsome male leads in strong roles (one surely doomed; one you're not sure)
a strong and sympathetic female character (the general’s daughter as calm, competent, courageous, but not--as she would not likely have been in that culture--secretly a ninja warrior; she is a warrior, as it were, in that she takes action and keeps her cool even if she is not a trained fighter)
gorgeous scenery
proper villain and hench-minions
pending war
mystically calm monks with holy relics
loyal followers with "personality" (that is, two dimensional quirks)
a score by A. R. Rahman, of all people
a potentially good plot line in which the two male leads are both honorable but set against each other by circumstance.
I liked it. But I could not help but wonder if the version released in the USA was somehow cut down from a longer and more coherent version. I found it choppy both in the visual and in the plot narration in a way that detracted from the fabulous epic it could have been. And it could have been fabulous. Additionally, it contained an important moral lesson: to quote my spouse, "Don't fuck with the Buddha."
So if you like historical films with a fantastical element, I'd see it. But I don't think it's the movie it could have been, and I'm sorry I didn't get to see that other film. This one came so close.
I'll start the 2009 film reviews with all the movies this year I got from Netflix and didn't finish.
Warriors of Heaven and Earth
On paper this had everything I love in an historical film with fantastical elements:
handsome male leads in strong roles (one surely doomed; one you're not sure)
a strong and sympathetic female character (the general’s daughter as calm, competent, courageous, but not--as she would not likely have been in that culture--secretly a ninja warrior; she is a warrior, as it were, in that she takes action and keeps her cool even if she is not a trained fighter)
gorgeous scenery
proper villain and hench-minions
pending war
mystically calm monks with holy relics
loyal followers with "personality" (that is, two dimensional quirks)
a score by A. R. Rahman, of all people
a potentially good plot line in which the two male leads are both honorable but set against each other by circumstance.
I liked it. But I could not help but wonder if the version released in the USA was somehow cut down from a longer and more coherent version. I found it choppy both in the visual and in the plot narration in a way that detracted from the fabulous epic it could have been. And it could have been fabulous. Additionally, it contained an important moral lesson: to quote my spouse, "Don't fuck with the Buddha."
So if you like historical films with a fantastical element, I'd see it. But I don't think it's the movie it could have been, and I'm sorry I didn't get to see that other film. This one came so close.
I'll start the 2009 film reviews with all the movies this year I got from Netflix and didn't finish.