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Warlords, The (aka: Tau Ming Chong) : Platinum Edition (2 DVDs) (Region-3)
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Product Detail |
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Audio Format: DD 5.1
Video Format: Widescreen 2.35:1
Languages: Mandarin, Cantonese, Thai
Subtitles: English, Chinese(T/S), Thai
Region Code: 3
Year Made: 2007
Running Time: 127
Release Date: 04/01/2008
If Peter Chan's The Warlords had an alternate title, it would well be "800." Here, a band of 800 bandits-cum-soldiers pit themselves courageously against an army of 5,000. This is pretty serious stuff. In the midst of all that talk of war, strategising, and bloody action, there's political machinations, tests of brotherhood and friendship, and a love triangle.
First off, this is a very bloody film about ancient warfare. From the very start, director Chan holds nothing back to show that he means this to be realistic as far as the action goes. Limbs are hacked off, bodies blown to pieces and heads lobbed off. It's no graceful martial arts war with wire-work. It's chaotic, and sometimes painful to watch. One particular sequence has an enemy soldier trying to impale Jet Li's General Pang with a long spear. Watch what happens.
Secondly, it's a wonder how many buckets of tears Takeshi Kaneshiro sheds in this film! Chan drips everything in earthy browns and blacks, lending grittiness to the dusty, war-torn landscape of 19th century China, under the Qing dynasty rule. This could easily have been an all-out action version of Sun Tzu's Art Of War, but Chan centres the film on three characters, bandits Er Hu (Andy Lau) and Wu Yang (Kaneshiro), and General Pang, and their friendship.
Pang is a man with a lot of baggage, who deserts the army after his men are wiped out in a betrayal by the Kiu army. Er Hu and Wu Yang are brother bandits in arms living by their own set of rules. The two recruit Pang into their gang, but when things take a turn for the worse for their village, Pang suggests that they join the Qing army and give up their life of crime. They take a blood oath and a pledge, but the two "brothers" soon find themselves having to adapt to a new set of rules while Pang becomes embroiled in a political web of deceit.
China in the mid-19th century: the suffering of 430 million Chinese under the corrupt rule of the Qing dynasty set the stage for the Taiping Rebellion. During the chaos of the decade long civil war, 50 million people died in battle or from starvation...
In the autumn of 1870, General Pang (played by Jet Li) stands high atop the city walls attired in official governor's robes. Peering down upon the site of his inauguration, he is filled with ambition and dreams. Pang has taken a path of no return; had he chosen differently, he might have been one of the heroes to later overthrow the corrupt Qing imperial regime and establish a new China. He could have changed the course of history....
But two bandits and a woman are responsible for changing the course of his life - they help him achieven his goals, but will ultimately be the cause of his demise. The two bandits are his sworn blood brothers: Zhao Er-Hu (played by Andy Lau) and Jiang Wu-Yang (played by Takeshi Kaneshiro). The woman who comes between them is Zhao's wife Lian (played by Xu Jingle). A born leader, Zhao Er-Hu is a man of honor. To ensure the survival of his village during the war, he leads a band of marauding bandits. They raid other impoverished villages, but leave theri victims with enough to sustain themselves. Zhao maintains a code of honor, displaying compassion for the poor. Sharing the spoils with his villagers, he has earned their loyalty and respect. The two loves of his life are his wife Lian, and his little brother Jiang Wu-Yang who he adopted when Jiang was orphaned at the age 13.
Jiang Wu-Yang is a charismatic outlaw, a cold-blooded killer filled with romantic idealism. He possesses both the callousness and the innocence of youth. He is like an animal operating on instinct but also values the ties of brotherhood. When Pang risks his life to save him, taking an arrow for him in a battle against the Taiping rebels, Jiang is indebted to Pang and develops an intense attachment. He worships Pang, putting him above all others - even Zhao the brother who adopted him.
After Qing troops pillage Zhao's village, Pang convinces Zhao and his bandits to join the Qing army. Jiang agrees to the proposal under the condition that Pang joins their brotherhood. With the future interests of the village in mind, Zhao also agrees to make Pang his blood brother, and relinquishes his role as leader and "big brother." Pang's initial motive is to end war and restore peace to the land - to do so he must first rise to power. With the help of Zhao, Jiang and their bandits, Pang establishes the Shan Regiment under the Qing army to counter the Taiping Rebels.
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