I watched "Dragon Blade" a few weeks back. Directed by Daniel Lee and starring Jackie Chan as Commander Huo An who is the leader of the protection squad of the Western regions of the silk road during the Han Dynasty, the Korea star Choi Siwon as his deputy Yinpo, John Cusack as Roman General Lucius, Adrien Brody as the Roman heir Tiberius and a cameo by Feng Shaofeng, this movie was quite entertaining given its rather interesting cast. In a very cliche way, it started of in the modern day with a 2 members archaeological team led by Vanness Wu and Karena Lam who found an ancient city buried under the sand and through laser projection and satellites imaging, and managed to reconstruct an image of how the city used to look like before the story progressed into the past. I am not a fan of Jackie Chan and guess I will never be but I always admire his amazing ability to kick butt and execute all those moves despite his age. Siwon has screen presence but his role was really minor and kind of insignificant, in my opinion. I am not sure why but I do find it a bit strange to see both American actors Adrien and John and their legion of armies in this movie. Of late, Adrien Brody seems to be taking on more baddie roles than before. The movie ended in the modern day again with both Vanness and Karena marveling at the greatness of this site before deciding to leave the ruins as a part of forgotten history so that it remained untainted by humans.
This is a prequel to the earlier Detective Dee (狄仁杰) movie starring Andy Lau and Carina Lau. I read that it did very well at the box office in China.
In this movie on the younger Detective Dee directed by the famous Tsui Hark, the stars appear to be a slew of young male actors, instead of the female actresses. The three male leads Mark Zhao (赵又廷) from Taiwan as Detective Dee, Feng Shaofeng (冯绍峰) and Lin Genxing (林更新, better known as the fourteenth prince in the China TV production "步步惊心") from China helmed the movie together with the pan-asian looking Yang Ying (杨颖, better known as Angelababy) from China, Carina Lau (刘嘉玲) from Hong Kong and Kim Bum (金汎) from Korea. I read in the chinese newspapers recently that Tsui Hark made a joke that the pay that Andy Lau commands is more than the pay of the three male leads added together and is enough to create the special effects of the sea dragon. It was notable that amongst the thespians, Carina Lau continued to enjoy the meaty role of playing the Empress Wu Zetian after acting the same role in the earlier movie. Never mind her humongous and outrageous headdress or crown, she still commanded a lot of respect and attention as a serious and formidable force to be reckoned with. The young Detective Dee first arrived in the Imperial Capital of Luoyang and soon found himself embroiled in a plot that involved extermination of the entire imperial family and officials. I will not give the story away but I definitely enjoyed the movie for its great martial arts action sequences and special effects. The cast was great and there was a lot of eye candy in the form of the actors themselves. As I was watching the movie, I was thankful that such movies still exist today. In the light of modern technology and the space age, there are a lot of movies out there on aliens, superheroes etc and only China, Hong Kong and Taiwan make such period dramas. I wonder if a decade or two later, would we still be able to see such movies anymore? I certainly hope so because I have always been a fan of such and hope I don't have to wait too long to see the next sequel.
Mark Chao, Feng Shaofeng and Lin Genxing
Feng Shaofeng, unknown cast, Mark Chao and Lin Genxing
I watched this movie about 2 weeks back, I think, and this sequel starred Daniel Wu and Feng Shaofeng on top of the earlier main cast. I am not going into the details about the storyline but somehow I enjoyed this second part more than the first. When is the third coming out?
. I watched the first movie "Painted Skin" (画皮) starring Chen Kun, Vicki Zhao Wei, Zhou Xun and absolutely enjoyed it then. So it is without a doubt that I would catch this second part "Painted Skin - The Resurrection" starring the same 3 actor and actresses.
In this installment were also actors and actress such as Kris Fei Xiang, Yang Mi and Feng Shaofeng, who were both starring in the mainland chinese serial "Palace". Unlike the first movie, I wasn't captivated by this new love story, which seemed rather unconvincing to me. I was bored by the storyline and fell asleep at one point. I love Chen Kun but he was just so so here. Vicki and Zhou Xun did not seem to be in their best element though they were equally good. Yang and Feng played forgettable small roles, which are not really pivotal to the development of the story.
What is alluringly touching is the theme song "画心" (Painted Heart), which I attached here, sang by 张靓颖 which I remember from the original movie "Painted Skin".
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