Zone Pro Site

                                          

                                                     Zone Pro Site

Chan Hsiao Wan is the shy daughter of the late legendary Master Fly Spirit. On her way through train, she met a gourmet doctor named Yeh Ru Hai, as she traveled back to Ai-Fong at her restaurant to get away from the mafia. The Step-Mother named Ai-Fong is a fish saleswoman, and now owner of her husband’s restaurant, but trying to save it, because she lost a bet and business to Master Fly Spirit’s apprentice, Tsai. One day, she was commissioned to do catering for a wedding, but she doesn’t know how to make their specific food, so Wan insist to cook instead. Problem is she doesn’t have a plan and her dad’s cookbook she lost to a bum, so she called the Gourmet Doctor, as he as Hai coincidentally came and make great dishes, so great it became Ai-Fong’s specialty for her restaurant. Luckily, Hai knows some help to cook, as he brings up Hsia aka the Master Tiger Nose. They meet Master Tiger Nose, and tried his famous Fried Rice Noodle. They love the Fried Rice Noodle so much; they cooked it for catering a business meeting. The head of the business meet had an Anton Ego flashback (Ratatooie) after eating the Fried Rice Noodle; he suggested them to enter the National Catering Contest, and to win one million dollars. Ai-Fong spots Master Ghost Head, he tried the special, but didn’t like it as he became a threat, even as Tsai’s secret weapon. Wan’s being trained by Master Ghost Head as his taster, since the Master lost his sense of taste. Wan enters the National Catering Contest in her altered father’s chef uniform, and help of the same mafias, and an expected help. They entered the final round, but desperately needs certain ingredient to win. Will Wan’s team win the contest and million dollars to the mafia, and will the mafia drop the charge since they’re in the team?

Wan has a cute personality & appealing style, and it’s rare to have female starring fictional character to be a chef (except to Queen Latifah in Last Holiday to an extent.), despite she rarely cook compare to her step-mom, Hai, and the mafia. Majority of cooking films usually stars males mostly to follow the father’s footstep. This can be done right in films such as Julie & Julia, Food Wars (not to be confused with Restaurant Wars), and Sweeny Todd, as there’s bad example such as Fighting Foodon, and just about any reality food shows that has 95% of the interviewers and 5% actual cooking. Interesting how she doesn’t want to be a chef at first, but family traditions was in jeopardy, and she need to overcome her fear of failure to her father and fish. Hai’s a good gourmet doctor and cook. Surprisingly there’s such a thing as a Gourmet Doctor, it’s definitely refreshing than the food critics you see identically in Chopped. It’s strange that he’s cooking food opposing to Wan in the contest, but he’s a free-range doctor anyone can hire him.  The foods made in the film are very impressive, and how they’re made that I would like to try them at a nearby Tai restaurant. The film does need trimming down for how long the film is being 2 hours and twenty minutes. Probably cut some of the side characters’ scenes short, while they’re entertaining and useful, we probably don’t need moments of mugging and poker games. The mafia are probably the funniest mafias I seen in films lately, since majority of mafia are usually the boring part in any films as hand-me-downs of Godfather or Goodfellas or Fat Tony from the Simpsons. Some of the comedies are quick to the point visually that it’s funny such as the father coming out of his grave.

Overall, Zone Pro Site is a fun, delectable, and sweet kind of film we do need from the bitter dramas that’s gone oversaturated.   

                                                  

                                                    In Love We Trust (2007)

In Beijing, China, a home investor named Mei Zhu has a 5 year old daughter named Hehe, who’s being sick from cancer and has 2-3 years left to live if she doesn’t have a bone marrow transplant. She needed her ex-husband, Xiao Lu to help their daughter by any means. They tried using donating their blood, but neither is a match to save. Their only option is to be together to mate to have another kid, so they can have a matching blood from the umbilical cord to save their child. However, both Mei Zhu and Xiao Lu have their spouse, and Xiao Lu doesn’t want to cheat on his current wife, Dong Fan (actual name of a person, not a pokemon). Dong Fan was furious from Xiao Lu’s choice until she sees Hehe, and realized how important she is. Mei Zhu’s current husband, Xie Huaicai instantly accepts the condition being with Xiao Lu in order to mate to save the daughter she devoted her life to. So Mei Zhu and Xiao Lu are going through trial and errors to see if they can make another kid in order to save their present kid.

This has the combination problem as another film, the supposedly child focus in Dragon Inn that would be stronger and suspenseful, but instead we focus on the couple to have less suspense. With that said, the couples in In Love We Trust are probably more engaging than Dragon Inn’s couple. They don’t distract away from the story, as they are the core of the story. Despite Hehe barely appeared in the film, thus we couldn’t be as emotionally connected to her whether she lived or died. There’s rarely a film that stars the dying child without focusing the parent(s) or friend(s), as proven with Secret of Nimh, Christmas Carol, Balto, Halloween Tree, and to name a few. Even there was a film that has the story of the dying star child, it’ll mostly show he/ she will be fine at the end, unless they did die as we’ll tear up from how much we knew the child and invested we got. The closest film I know is Hayao Miyazaki’s Grave of the Firefly.    

If this film was fueled by emotions, this movie would be sad in theory. There’s rarely a film that made me sad to tears. There are plenty of films to give different range of emotion. There’s comedy to mostly make laughter, action to mostly make amazement, horror to rarely scare (and Tim Burton’s Mars Attack), a bad film that has horrible visuals and relies on annoyance lead to anger, and a predictably, repetitive, gray, unemotional, wooden, and slow film lead boredom. Sadly, this film is somewhere at the ladder. If this film didn’t spend too long with their slow scenes that goes nowhere. Most of the characters are having around 1 to 3 expression. Mei Zhu has the most expression of sadness, joy, and anger, which understands that her daughter’s sick, but happy to see she’s getting better, and mad that Xiao Lu isn’t trying with the sex. The Spouse has two with happy and sad, while Xiao Lu is mostly stoic. Romance by all variety (boy meets girl, girl meets boy, boy meets boy, girl meet girl, and adult version) is the least interested genre, since they’re mostly the same with them meeting, dating, breaking, or reconnecting, and often get together or apart at the end. It’s no secret that I’m mostly alone in life, not really a romantic cocky kind of man, and has some love to family, pets, and characters in certain films. In Love We Trust has good intention to have a couple to get back together in order to save a child, but with pacing issues and disconnection, this is one love and trust to pass. 

                                                       

                                                       Shanghai Triad (1995)

In 1930’s, a young boy named Shuisheng goes from England to Shanghai to his Uncle Tang as part of the criminal organization as the Triad Boss. In Shanghai, Shuisheng become a servant for a singer named Jinbao. Shuisheng could not do the “simplest” task such as lighting a match for Jinbao, so she gave him the nickname as Bumpkin (as he’ll be called that for the rest of the review). Jinbao’s life starts to get into hazard when Bumpkin’s Uncle Tang and his members were being killed off by the other criminal organization. Jinbao, Bumpkin, and Tang’s remaining member named Song get relocated into a small island with little civilians to be hidden from the public. However, as days goes by, Jinbao is not entirely safe, as the other members of those felonies get close whacking her out.

Bumpkin could be a dull example of a blank slate, but not as bad as Bella Swan from the entire Twilight Series. Yes, the viewer supposed to be in slate’s shoe, but the slate now needs a personality of their own to be interesting that to concentrated to be. When Bumpkin loses his uncle, he doesn’t react with any expression other than the same dull surprise. Jinbao is a singer with a complicated career mostly with the organization, but has retained her childhood with music she used to know. The music she knows and sing with a little girl is the original title of the film, Row to Grandma’s Bridge. Jinbao’s personality is range from calm and collective to a strict prima donna when she doesn’t get her desire. The Crime Organization is criminal organization that’s no different than typical mafia, nothing different from others. They’re kind of threatening to some of the members and Jinbao, but there’s isn’t any investment in any of the other of them. This is in common with the two terrible Baz Lurman films, Moulin Rouge and Great Gatsby; a film stars a witness to record moments with the rich icon with a chance of being killed. The difference with why this film (as well as a bunch of other films) is better than any of Baz Lurman’s film is the music is original and fit the timeline, and most of the scenes last more than five seconds. There’s other body guarding films that’s mostly close in identity. Despite this film came out three years after The Bodyguard with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. Shanghai Triad is an interesting take on a young bodyguard to protect a singer, but there’s got to be a better security to be passionate with to raise and take a note. 

Shower

Liu & his mentally challenged son (Erming) run a Shower Station with customers of men and rarely woman and children. Liu’s elder son, Daming has returned from a misinterpreted letter from Erming, but decided to stay around for a while. Daming is trusted to keep an eye on Liu and their daily routine from running the shower station to jogging at night, but lost him. Luckily, Erming found his way back to the Shower House in the morning. 

Daming worries that Liu was starting to lose conscious, until he died in the bath while Erming was playing his game. Daming worries what will happen to Erming on his own in the Shower House, and the business itself.

It’s rare there’s a film that’s set mostly entirely in a shower station or bath house (at least not set in a gay bathhouse. Yet there’s a listing of those films. I don’t understand how specific those films are either.). There are some side characters that may or not contribute to the characters such as Mr. Wu with his cricket fights with others (think cockfight with crickets. Crocket fight. There’s Cricket Crocket from Cricket on a Hearth?), and singer that’s friend with Erming that can only sing under a shower. They may not be important as the main characters, but they’re here to show who actually go there. In the opening scene of the film, there’s a Public Shower Room that you can go in and out, similar to a car wash for people.

This film is similar to What’s Eating Gilbert Grapes, A Simple Plan, Rain Man, etc. Where Rain Man was based on an actual person, while debatable if he can knows Poker well. Erming’s disability of living in a loop has some advantage that he can run the business on his own as he knows the formula, so he’s not entirely helpless and useless. The downside is he can’t work any other jobs and do anything new in life. It’s made worst is when he loses the bath house and his home. Daming is the straight man/ normal man that’s mostly a blank slate to observe everything. Despite the straight man to the “funny” man is usually the boring part of the film as we’re better paying attention to the funny one. I said funny loosely, because Erming isn’t completely funny yet slightly annoying, but has his own interest to be a character. There’s a flashback involving the characters’ mom, but it was shown twice, and it felt like a separated film with different setting and tone that’s barely a footnote.

Shower is an interesting film. It’s not bad that I would scrub myself hard in the shower to get the bad feeling off. While I don’t know any film I would watch while I’m bathing in a shower, pool, or spa. Though there’s a good reason why not watch a film through electrical device in a watery container. The film itself is just a relaxing film to do a cannonball in.

Raise the Red Lantern

                                              

                                                   Raise the Red Lantern

                   

                          “With blood and rage of crimson red, ripped from…”

-                                                                                                      -  Red Lantern Oath from Green Lantern.

      Oops, wrong one! I mistake the comic to the film I’m reviewing.

In the year of 1920s, a woman named Songlian has been forced to become the fourth mistress for her husband aka Master at a temple. The temple raised their red lanterns upon the fourth mistress, as her servants came. Each Mistress gets their privilege when the red lantern it lit at their part of the temple. She meets the first mistress named Yuru (the bitter, oldest one), and then the second mistress named Zhouyun (the sweet one), and barely the third mistress named Meishan (the singer). The next day, Songlian discover a locked room that Zhouyun revealed to be the Death Room. Songlian meet Feipu (son of Yuru) as he’s playing a flute. Songlian thought her servant, Yan’er stole her flute, but reveal upon searching has found a Voodoo doll of Songlian (that was secretly made by Zhouyun). Turns out Feipu has Songlian’s flute (which was her father’s), but he burned it. Songlian starts to “lose” trust in Zhouyun to the point Souglian slip Zhouyun’s ear while cutting her hair. Songlian became pregnant, as the red lanterns lit day and night all through winter, until she revealed she’s faking it to the point that the husband get furious. Souglian reveal Yan’er hidden lit red lantern as they were burnt to ashes. Songlian will soon lose everyone and her sanity.

        

           Songlian spends the majority of film stoic and cries few times. It’s partly understandable that she’s not passionate to be with a man mainly for the money at the cost of freedom, free will, and possibly her sleep with the lanterns on at night. You barely see the husband as he’s unidentifiable, unless he caught an unfocused glimpse at a distance of him. This is an unidentifiable character “mostly” done right as much as Onceler (Lorax, not the recent CGI crap), The Keys (ET), and the Hunters (Bambi). Although we do see some glimpse, it can lose the mystery of the husband, but it’s not as bad as Dr. Claw (live-action Inspector Gadget) and the humans in Alpha & Omega films.

          I don’t get into these melodrama films, mainly because they’re mostly the same with a whiny woman doing the same dating story(ies) range from having or losing a man, and she goes wee-hee happy in the end with rushed conflict, as seen in all Madea films, Mama Mia, and many bad chick flick. What set this film slightly different is the suffering onto the characters, and they’re in real pain and suffering from abuse or isolation, but that’s minor. Any other chick flick would have the main woman wouldn’t have such physical or emotional conflict, thus we wouldn’t relate to them as directors and/or writer would treat them like babies or Stepford Wives (which emotionally wise, they’re about close).   

        

          The temple is nice, and the lighting’s nice, but it gets grating as it’s the only location we’re in, which is the point for the wives. This film is incredibly slow, repetitive, and it does get interesting around the hour mark. If I was in Songlian’s massaged feet, I would go insane from the slow times in this prison. As this is a film I wouldn’t revisit for awhile.

Touch of the Light

Touch of the Light (2012)

Huang-Yu Shiang is a blind man going to a music class in college at Thailand. He’s being guided by his mom and later with his classmates. A woman, named Jie works at Coco (Thailand’s Starbuck) and goes to Dance Class taught by Shiang’s mom. One day, Jie saves Shiang from crossing the street on his own, and they slowly bond with their own goals. Shiang plays music on the piano that would lead him connecting other people and put into the contest with songs such as a remix of Flight of the Bumblebee (not to be confused with Bumble Boogie), Bach music, and As Time Goes By.

The theme is disability, mainly blindness in society and education.

This film was originally going to be a short film based on a real event, but was suggest being a feature length film. That kind of idea can work when done right. Short Stories in books with around 100 pages or less such as The Birds, Shawshank Redemption, Christmas Carols, and (I have to include this for personal reason I’ll do a review in the future after January 2017) Nightmare Before Christmas. These stories may be short, but they were expanded with additional characters that fit the story, explore questions that was asked about the book such as ”Did anyone noticed their Pumpkin King left Halloween?” or “What did they do with the victim and how he/ she escaped?” include music and/ or suspense onto the character(s), and other stuffs that helped the story better. However, there’s a bad way of expanding a short story into films such as Children of the Corn, The Last Mimzy, and recently with Batman: The Killing Joke. In fact, this film is very common with the Killing Joke. A short story that was added with a subplot on a woman (Barbara/ Batgirl and Jie) dealing with a generic life you see in a generic chick flick and an issues that barely connect to the overall story and feels like a separate film. Granted, we would like to see more substance onto the female character, but we want to see something unique from them than to be a love interest, boring, a body count, or a Sex in the City character. One thing that’s unique is a blind person in college, at least in film. 

We’ve seen blind characters in films before. Some blind characters done right such as Toph (Avatar: The Last Airbender), and to name a few, but there’s some done wrong such as Daredevil (the film, not the Netflix show), Garret (Quest For Camelot), and Neil Patrick Harris (Beastly). The kind of blind characters that was written to be blind as an after-thought, yet they have the same slight as if they weren’t blind or (in daredevil’s case) altered visually.

Shiang’s very common with Ray Charles since they’re both blind pianist. The difference is Ray became blind from trauma, got rich, had wife issue, was a singer, and appeared in films, as Shiang got blind from premature birth, won contest dishonorably from the pity of judges, and isn’t on any drugs. We can tell he’s blind as we see his point of view of seeing people as black silhouette in foggy world. The background music sounds nice to listen, and you can see the passion and effort Shiang and his friends when they help him add the remix beat into his piano work. Touch of the Light I would like to watch, but a short story it would work better to focus on.

Eat, Drink, Man, Woman

Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (1994)

Directed by Ang Lee

Master Chu is a master chef and a stay at home widow father of three daughters named Chien, Ning, and Jen. Each daughter has their own jobs and subplots. Jen has barricaded from other, except for her students as a teacher of chemistry class. Chien is an audio flight attendant and wanted to be a chef. The youngest, Ning works at Wendy’s (who looks more like Pipi Longstocking’s Fast Food), has a French class, and has a boyfriend. Once in a while, Chu’s relatives of Mrs. Liang, Liang, and her little Shan-Shan arrive at Chu’s place for dinner or meeting. Chu was a manager and head chef at the Grand Hotel with his friend, until his friend died as well as his sense of taste. Will this family support together, or they’ll be separated as much as their subplot?

The father is a good chef, as he showed his love to his family through his meals. Two of the daughters of Chien and Ning are boring, their love interests are immediately forgotten, and their subplots are close to identical as the daughter’s overall features. It was almost impossible to keep track which sisters are which. I thought Chien was the oldest, but she was the second oldest, as it’s the red lips did throw me off. It’s just like how adding red lips in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland suddenly makes her older opposed to her original lips being faded pink. I thought Jen was the youngest with her ponytail, but she’s the oldest and was the unique until she cut her ponytail off to look like her sisters, and she was my favorite out of the sisters. Ning is probably the most forgettable of the sisters, as I couldn’t recall a moment. Lust is one of the other themes for the daughters, to the point it feels like a Sex in the City episode, they even play similar music before that show existed. The criticism said the family interaction, but I rarely see any moments together aside from the dinner scenes. Then again, the father has spent the majority of his time isolated in his home cooking with endless supplies and animals such as fish, chickens, frogs, and geese, while twice or thrice in the film he has went to the hotel’s kitchen. The film gets repetitive with many dating scene and every scenes with Master Chu and Mrs. Liang ends with Chu getting a rough massage from someone else. It does get real slow with the conversations that would carry less from Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger Hidden Tiger, and too much in The Hulk, including the stare blankly at the object. I’ve seen better films that have a family theme and interest such as Wolf Children, The Simpsons, Life With Louise, The Adams Family, and Kramer Vs Kramer. This is one Soul Food I would have eat the least. 

Autumn's Tale

An Autumn’s Tale

A doll maker named Jenifer (played by Cherry Chung) travels from Hong Kong to New York for a job. She was picked up from Newark Airport by a crazy taxi driver named Figurehead (or Figgy for short, played by Chow Yun Fat) to take Jenifer to her apartment where he lives in New York near a train line. Jenifer met her old boyfriend with the dolls she made for him, who’s now her ex when Vincent has a girlfriend. One night, there was a gas leak in Jenifer’s room, so Figgy saved her. Jenifer and Figgy hang out and often relate through lunch, giving gifts, and helping each other. Jenifer has a job as babysitter and waitress at her mom’s ex’s restaurant, she studies acting, and a sculpture artist in front of the New York Public Library. One day on a date at the beach, Figgy brings folklore that when a sailor dies, they get reincarnated into a seagull. Then at November 9, Figgy throw a party partly to get closer to Jenifer (despite decorations are plastic pumpkins), but Vincent lightly crashed the party as Jenifer has some conversation that may lead to misunderstanding to Figgy for him to storm out of the party to gamble, smoke, and get drunk while breaking his commitment. Little does Jenifer know that the party was Figgy’s birthday? Will they get back together just like every Romantic Film, or will they be separated with one of them dead?

As romantic comedy goes, it’s standard from all other in the genre with the dating, relationship, and destiny (destiny being the word I drink every time it’s said as much as “faith of the world”). Then again, I’ve haven’t seen a unique romance films I couldn’t predict yet in my life. What stand out are our two main characters. Chow Yung- Fat is seen as comedic, and it’s quite refreshing and interesting to see what a dramatic actor used to be, as well as passionate to his goals. His passion is mostly relatable that after life as a sailor and being alive for 28, he should expect greatness, but reality continues to be a dick by giving him the conflict onto everything such as being yourself for the girlfriend, only to realize that she’s either taken or her ex is having a boomerang relationship. Expectation of what we wanted isn’t going to be set in natural stone, the people and environment will always change it mostly for the worst and rarely for the best. Cherry Chung is likable as she’s adapting from Hong Kong to New York, as she’s a skilled artist and does her best from selling her work to babysitting to a waitress to be paid to keep her rent until the end. It’s close to Lost in Translation in reverse where it’s foreigner in US, had problems adapting. It could be possible that Figgy died off-screen and became a seagull, but it could be any sailor such as Bluto after being punched by Popeye to death after eating a can of spinach. Autumn Tale might be a decent romantic with only the main leads to watch around September or November. October I don’t see much people watching it unless they need a relaxing film from the scary films.

Not One Less (1999)

Not One Less (1999)

A 13 year old graduated girl named Wei Minzhu becomes a teacher in a rundown school. She teaches the kids on a limited budget, as well as lives with them. One of the 26 students named Zhung Huike is the “class clown”/ trouble making punk (aren’t they the same thing?) made some conflict of making mess with the other students in the cost of the chalks they have little of, and constantly tries to run away from school. One day, Wei loses one of her students to sports school to Mr. Zhang’s group. Zhung (not to be confused with Zhang from the previous sentence) successfully ran away from school to his “sick mother” in the city. Wei needed to get Zhung back, but needed money for transportation to get him back. Will Wei get the Zhung back to sustain her class, job, and sanity?

The moral is to keep your job with responsibility, no matter the setting and conflict you’ll get. If you don’t, then you’ll lose it all.

I feel sorry for Wei for her teaching in a terribly crooked school at a young age. She’s actually trying her best to teach and save her students with emotions, and physically does her job than spoke or waves her finger.

I don’t sense compassion onto Zhung, he’s just an annoying, snot nose, little brat with little to no redeemable factor what so ever. He could have been redeemable when we see him with “sick mom”, but we never did as is the reason why I said “sick mom” very loosely. You can argue that she’s dead as Zhung is mentally destroyed, but usually they have at least some sorrow or mentioning of dead mom or less likely having vengeance.

The rest of the kids are very forgettable. The problem with kid characters as side characters is they’re mostly range from bland to annoying. They’re rarely good unique kid characters in films aside from animated films that starred kids, maybe ET, Monster Squad, The Goonies,

There’s rarely a film that focus on the teacher than the students such as an episode of Simpsons, King and I (the live action version, not the crappy Richard Rich animated version), (next example I might kick myself with an ice skate) a Goofy Cartoon- Teachers Are People, School of Rock (the movie, not the many crappy Nickelodeon live action shows), and Bad Teacher. However, we’ve never see the teacher be as young as 13, since they’re mostly 25 or older.

Usually my closer friend in high school was the teacher or teacher’s assistant than the students, because majority of them are obnoxious. So I befriend them since they’re most sane to some extent. This film I’m okay with, the twerp I’m not.

Dragon Inn

(The original title as New Dragon Gate Inn.)

      In 1457, during the 8 year of Emperor Jing Tai, the Eunuchs controlled both the government and the power of two agencies. The officer lead by Tsou Siu-yan has tortured many people (including the father of a family we’re focusing on) to death with arrows and wood crushing onto his limbs and the emperor sends his troops to aim for the father’s bloodline and family to banish or to death. The family (the mother named Mo-yan, and her two kids) ran away separately with hired guards from the troops. The family recovered to the Dark, Dreaded, Dragon Inn, where they won’t find anything but scum and villainy there. The Dragon Inn is run by Jade, with her guards, and her family members such as Dao as their chef. The family met their uncle Chow (as friend, not actual relative), as Tsou stays in the Dragon Inn unaware on the father’s family are at the same Inn. What follows is ways for the family to escape the Inn from the troops, including Chow getting a deal to escape as long he marries Jade. The climax has Chow, Jade, and Mo-yan fighting the Tsou in the desert to the death.  

I would have thought the film would be a family survival film starring the kids, at least which would be the case if the poster on the DVD has their Mo-yan, Chow, and Jade on it, but Mo-yan (the character in the foreground of the poster) not even the star of the film nor Mo-yan does much in the film aside from being defensive, silent, and drank a full barrel of wine, and Chow came in half way from the film as he spend most the screen time being charming and marrying and defensive to Tsou and Jade. The kids are just there, and just there to be saved, as they should be, yet don’t make an impact. The star of the film is more on Jade than anyone else. That’s Maggie Cheung, who’s more entertaining than her later film, In the Mood for Love. She’s shady, sneaky, hyper, and is controlled when she’s in business. The villain (Tsou) is devious, and his skills does show why he’s a threat with his sword play and heat sneaky arrow (on loan from Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which the film did a similar shadow scene with Chow and Jade), but he’s not as scary as Jade’s brother, Dao. Dao is a scary chef that reminds me of Sweeny Todd, in that some of the food he made is made from dead unwanted guests, except for a goat he cut from whole to pieces, even to what he does to Tsou.

The action scenes are too fast, too close, and isn’t well focus until the climax. Some of the people’s clothing in the fast scenes are too close that we can’t tell whose fighting. It’s very similar to the climax of Tsui Hark’s (the producer, who would later be the director of this film as Flying Swords of Dragon Gate) other work, Double Team. Jean Claude Van Dam confronts with Mickey Rourke in a coliseum filled with landmines with a ferocious tiger circling the field, because Jean is rescuing his newborn son. It’s basically a film where the action isn’t focus until the climax where it’s done in an over-the-top action. 

If the film was a POV of the two kids, the film would be stronger and scarier of an idea of an army off to kill you in your short young life. The idea is best compared with Land Before Time and Dinosaur (2000), one with young characters surviving in scary world, the other with older characters surviving in a dull world. If you wanted a see a film with sword fighting and chaos, this is the film for you.  If you want to see more control and better visuals, the original Dragon Gate has more control with older kids than this version are aged around 10 years, as the 2011 remake of Flying Swords of Dragon Gate has both control and visuals with the focus on the wives than kids. However, watching the original or remake will cost you a Jade.