Starring: Kelly Chen Wai-lam, Leon Lai Ming, Donnie Yen Ji-dan
Director: Ching Siu-tung
Category: IIA (Putonghua)
Asking pop singers to stick to their day jobs might sound like a cheap and culturally reactionary jibe - but that's exactly what one wants to scream at the two lead actors in An Empress and the Warriors, Ching Siu-tung's period drama about how a princess rises to the challenge when the death of her father puts her on the throne.
Rather than reinvigorating their movie careers, Kelly Chen Wai-lam and Leon Lai Ming have killed off what remained of their credentials - and those of the film as well - with devastatingly misjudged performances as a monarch-in-distress and the hermit fighter who saves her from an early demise.
But it's not only Chen and Lai who are drawn out of their depths in An Empress. The same goes for the masterly martial arts choreographer Ching Siu-tung: while he revels in the film's action scenes, he seems very much at sea in directing the film's dramatic aspects - there's a lack of rhythm in the telling of a very contrived storyline, a situation made worse by a constant reliance on a sweeping, melodramatic score to flag up emotions that simply are not there.