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Released by: Magnolia Films
Released on: 6/29/2010
Director: Peter Chan, Wai Man Yip
Cast: Jet Li, Andy Lau, Takashi Kaneshiro, Jinglei Xu
Year: 2007
The Movie:
Another in the seemingly endless line of Chinese historical epics made in the last five years or so, The Warlords, like so many of its ilk, puts the emphasis on action and martial arts sequences rather than storytelling. That said, its tale is an interesting one, even if the script doesn't flesh things out as well as it could have or produce the most fascinating cast of characters ever committed to celluloid.
The film is placed during the middle of the Taiping Rebellion in 1860s China, where a massive civil war was wreaking havoc across the land. After a massive battle, General Qingyun (Jet Li), is the only man left of the Qing forces that were decimated by the Imperial forces they set out to stop. Unsure what to do with himself, Qingyun winds up taking comfort in the arms of a beautiful peasant named Liansheng, (Jinglei Xu), who helps him recover from the wounds he received in the battle. In a moment of clarity, he confesses to her that he feigned death and hid under the bodies of his fallen soldiers to avoid being killed by the enemy troops, and that he feels he is a coward for doing so.
From there he wanders into a village where a gang of thieves lead by Er-hu (Andy Lau) and Wu-yang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) run the show. With Imperial troops encroaching, intending to put a stop to their pilfering of supplies, it seems their destruction is imminent until Qingyun convinces the two that they should join him and return to the Qing army. They swear an oath to each other, promising to always stand by each other no matter how dire the circumstances, and Qingyun is once again put in charge of some troops, made all the stronger by the addition of the thieves who follow Er-hu and Wu-yang. The three 'brothers' set out to take over a few choice cities for strategic reasons, and things are going quite well with their new alliance, but when the pressure starts to mount and it comes to light that Qingyun has developed a romantic relationship with Liansheng, who is in fact married to Er-hu, things begin to dissolve very quickly.
With its classic themes of brotherly loyalty in the heat of battle torn asunder by the love of a woman, The Warlords might seem like it has all the makings of a classic historical drama, and in many ways it does. The performances are strong across the board, with Jet Li turning in one of his best efforts in some time and really making his Qingyun an interesting man to follow. Kaneshiro and Lau are their usual reliable selves as well, bringing a certain heaviness to their roles that makes their characters interesting, even if they're not given quite as much depth to work with as is afforded Li. On top of that, the battle sequences are amazingly violent and often times impressively staged, making it all the more frustrating that the script bounces around as much as it does.
The love triangle aspect of the film brings nothing to the story save for a convenient way to further the dissolution of the triumvirate that the three men form, and it feels crammed into the script for that reason and that reason alone. While it does give us the opportunity to appreciate Jinglei Xu's charm and beauty, this subplot feels very out of place with the rest of the film, as if it's there to appease an audience that expects some romance in the picture rather than because it was needed. As pretty as Jinglei Xu is, however, her performance is fluff. She's given little to do except look pretty and periodically shed a melodramatic tear and stare off longingly into space. The last half of the movie does pick up some of the pieces that the script drops along the way, though not all of them, and the movie does a pretty good job of redeeming itself towards the finale, but there are long portions that really just don't work here.
Thankfully the battle scenes do go some ways towards making it easy to overlook these flaws. For a director whose background is in romantic drama, Peter Chan has done an admirable job staging massive scenes of large-scale carnage and mayhem, not every pulling back from the violence such scenes require or skimping on the bloodshed. Ultimately this results in a film that, despite its unevenness, is certainly worth watching. The pro's definitely outweigh the con's and Jet Li's solemn general searching for redemption is reason alone to give it a watch.
It should be noted that this U.S. Blu-ray release runs fourteen minutes shorter than the Hong Kong Blu-ray release from Megastar which came out last year. The film still plays reasonably well, but some of the battle sequences have been trimmed as have a few subplots.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Warlords looks pretty good in AVC encoded 1080p 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen. Color reproduction is often striking but some contrast tweaking does bleach things now and then. Flesh tones look lifelike and natural, though there are some scenes where they run a little on the hot side. There's loads of detail for eagle eyed viewers to marvel over in the costumes and sets that are used throughout the film while texture remains rich and intricate. The image is always clean and clear and there are no noticeable problems with mpeg compression artifacts, edge enhancement or digital scrubbing. The image looks very strong throughout. Black levels aren't quite perfect - there's some obvious crush in some of the darker scenes and shadow detail could have been a bit better - but overall things look pretty good on this disc.
Audio options are supplied in the film's native Chinese language and in an English language dubbed track, both in 48 kHz DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio with subtitles offered in English, English SDH and Spanish. Unless you've got a strong aversion to subtitles, opt for the Chinese language track as the English dubbed mix doesn't fit the film nearly as well and comes across as fake and forced. The sound quality on it is fine but it doesn't have the authenticity of the original language mix. Regardless of which option you choose, however, things sound pretty impressive. The battle scenes are as active and aggressive as you'd expect them to be, with all manner of effect s spread out nicely throughout the surround channels and bringing plenty of fun and excitement to these scenes.
Magnolia has included some interesting supplemental material on this release starting with the thirty-nine minute The Making Of The Warlords, which covers pretty much everything you'd want to know about in terms of putting this project together. There's a lot of emphasis here on the logistics involved in the scope of a project like this, from the stunt work to the sets to the horse training, and it gives you a pretty good appreciation for how much effort this took. This is complimented quite well by The Warlords 117 Days: A Production Journal, which is thirty-five minutes worth of video journal entries made by the cast and crew while the production was underway which give us a fairly intimate look into some of the trials and tribulations they encountered. A third featurette, The Warlords: Behind The Scenes Special, is a fairly promotional eighteen minute look at the making of the picture that's interesting enough if far too clip heavy to offer as much substance as the other two provide. All three featurettes are presented in standard definition.
Rounding out the extras is an HDNet spot, also in HD, which is essentially a glorified trailer designed to promote the film, a half an hour's worth of deleted scenes presented in standard definition, and a standard definition international trailer for the feature. Menus, chapter stops and trailers for a few other Magnolia/Magnet DVD and Blu-ray releases bring the supplements to a close.
The Final Word:
Purists are going to want to opt for the uncut version of the film that's easily available by way of the Hong Kong Blu-ray release, but if you're open to the international edit of the film, Magnolia's Blu-ray release is a good way to check it out. The audio and video are strong, and the supplements are pretty decent as well. Why fourteen minutes have been chopped out of the picture for release outside of China is a mystery, but even in this abbreviated form The Warlords provides enough action and adventure on an epic scale that it's worth a look.
Want more info? Check out the Magnolia site by clicking here!