Unfortunately, it’s also emotionally flat.
The powerful war epic about three battling kingdoms in ancient China is logically too huge to be adapted completely into a two-hour film. As such, Three Kingdoms feels like a four-hour film crammed into two hours. The books are so rich that you can pick literally any part of it and develop it into a standalone film. Three Kingdoms has as its focus, the story of Zhao Zilong’s (Andy Lau) rise to power.
You’d wish the film would slow down and take whatever time’s needed to flesh out the characters and their relationships, but I suspect there might be a three- or four-hour version somewhere in Daniel Lee’s head, or that one day we might see a full-fledged version on DVD. It does feel like so.
Because of its lack of breathing space, the film scores zero on its emotional chart, and the story comes across more like a dry recounting of history. Even so, Three Kingdoms is gorgeously stylish, its art direction so attentive to period and design details that it would be a delight for fans of history, legends and myths to see the Five Generals come to life on screen or the beautiful armours and costumes and various other eye-pleasing materials.
These days with so many period epics on the way or already released, you can literally create a checklist for their requisites. Beautiful costumes: check. Stylish weapons: check. Breathtaking landscapes: check. Armies of thousands: check. Exciting martial arts and action sequences?
The action sequences here are messy and hard to see. Most times they’re either shot against the sun or deliberately blurred that it’s hard to tell who’s fighting who. They’re also closely shot and purposely disorienting. Director Lee seems to have Wong Kar-wai Ashes Of Time aspirations, but Ashes Of Time’s style is a necessary component of the story, and in Three Kingdoms, the blurry action isn’t. As such, Sammo Hung’s action choreography is pretty much wasted.
Ultimately it’s all style but zero on emotional connection and mild on adrenaline.
