Starring: Sammo Hung Kam-bo, Andy Lau Tak-wah, Maggie Q
Director: Daniel Lee Yan-kong
Category: IIB (Putonghua)
There's a familiar ostentatiousness in big-budget historical adventures that cater to the pan-Chinese market, from their impeccably staged action scenes to the gorgeously shot vistas and sumptuous settings. The genre is susceptible to grandiosity, a trap from which the latest adaptation of literary classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms tries but fails to break free.
It's all the more disappointing because director-writer Daniel Lee Yan-kong and co-writer Lau Ho-leung have devised a feasible way in which to distinguish their film version from the many television series and movies that have found inspiration in Luo Guanzhong's opus, written in the 14th century and telling of events a millennium earlier. Containing more than 100 chapters and 1,000 characters, it contains enough material for dozens of films. The challenge is coming up with a fresh angle.
Lee seems to have found it in the creation of a new character. Luo Ping'an (Sammo Hung Kam-bo), the warrior-narrator who is central to the film's plot, is a semi-comic anti-hero whose exploits never make it into the annals of history. Hung is perfect for the role of a blustery has-been who befriends future legend Zhao Zilong (Andy Lau Tak-wah), only to see himself becoming increasingly marginalised by his protege.