Sadly Over-hyped

Just perfect...

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Fun film. Weird, jumps around, but I thought it was a worthy use of 5 or 6 dollars it cost.I have a huge collection of various martial arts films and watch that stuff all the time. I like the butcher, he always gets run over by some dude on a horse. The chef was pretty involving, preparing the perfect dish to serve to the master. The swordsman, well I guess he got what he deserved for being so bold. The spoiler is he goes up against some other swordsmen, but the old sword maker cheated him when he built the ultimate sword, and he dies.I thought it was good for a few laughs, but it is hard to follow. Use your imagination to fill in the confusing parts and all is well.

Form over content film about what happens when the title characters all gain possession of a magical blade that was forged from several other legendary blades and their destinies are all intertwined.Your tolerance for this film will depend upon how you take form over content---and whether you can take a film that looks like an 30 second commercial expanded to 90 minutes. Its all clever images and rapid cutting.I lost patience very fast and had I not been watching this on DVD where fast forward is a possibility I would have walked out. Don't get me wrong it looks great, but outside of the look there didn't seem to be very much here.Your mileage will vary.

A hapless butcher (Liu Xiaoye) is in infatuated with a courtesan named Mei (Kitty Zhang Yuqi). Her charms are unworldly. In his way is the infamous fighter Big Beard. The butcher doesn't stand a chance. When he happens upon a stranger with a magical cleaver, he suddenly has the means to win. Before he uses it, he's told the magical blade isn't for killing and the blade's origin is explained. As the title suggests, the rest of the story involves a chef and a swordsman (Ashton Xu).Set in ancient china, this is a highly stylized version of the past. Director Wuershan hails from the commercial ad world and it's obvious. You can tell he makes ads featuring lots of slow motion, fast edits, bellowing fabric and soaring arias. The film is full of gimmicks. This includes, black and white sections with red highlights à la Sin City, animations, video game sequences, Taiwanese 3D news renderings and cartoons. Audio wise there are funky hip hop beats, techno tracks and a horrific Mandarin rap performed by the Bordello staff. Gimmicks or not, he knows how to compose a gorgeous visual. The images are great, the problem is the rapid fire delivery approach of it.The story unfolds like a Russian doll; stories are nestled within each other. It's not a bad concept except only one of the three stories is watchable. The other two stories suffer from too much whiz-bang effects that leaves no room for digestion. They're simply over wrought, over edited and over produced. When the story settles down, it's in the middle part featuring Ando Masanobu as the chef. It is by far the best story of the three and if the movie is judged on this part, it would be a very good one. Unfortunately it's surrounded by the frantic blur of the rest of the film.excerpt from www.cinemaliberated.com

Movie reviewers invited to screenings usually see it as their job to sit through a movie, no matter how bad it is. However, during the media screening of this film, many reviewers walked out after 10 minutes. More walked out before half-an-hour into the screening.It could be because they do not understand the film as there were no subtitles at the screening, but I get the feeling that those who walked out just couldn't stand watching such trash. Stoically, I stayed on.The plot is purportedly about a mystical blade which looks like an old chopping knife. As it passes through the hands of the titular characters, each with different motivations, it shapes their destinies. The Butcher (Liu Xiaoye) is a fat slob in love with a beautiful courtesan (Kitty Zhang), but is rebuffed each time he approaches her. The Chef (Masanobu Ando) is a loner bent on seeking revenge for the slaughter of his family. The Swordsman (Ashton Xu), the son of a legendary warrior, is consumed by the desire to eclipse his father in both power and fame.Their stories intertwine as each man takes possession of the mystical blade and discovers the power and the danger it brings.I am sure there will be some smart alecs who will see this as a work of a genius but it was sheer torture sitting through this unholy trash, trying to figure out what is happening and why. The scenes are so devoid of logic and interest that the movie would make the puerile eye-candy flick, Sucker Punch, look like a classic art flick of epic proportions. The actors seem to have been selected for their weird circus side-show looks than for how well they can act. There are curious looking midgets in the cast and even one made up to look like Jabba The Hutt.Director Wuershan, who used to shoot adverts, fails miserably at trying his hand on a feature film. He throws in all sorts of crazy, pop culture stuff and even repeating an aria from Puccini's Tosca, in a bid to lend style (or a sense of art) to the scenes. But it turns out to be more of an unintentional comedy - or a tragicomedy. The few sequences that look interesting enough are those dealing with food. Makes me wonder what sort of hallucinatory drug Wuershan was on when he made this film. (limchangmoh.blogspot.com)