One of my all time favorites.

Fantastic!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

When it got announced on ICM that a Hong Kong viewing challenge was to take place,the first thing that came to mind was to catch a non-Hollywood Action movie with Michelle Yeoh. Finding the outline to this title very tempting,I got set to welcome the dynamite fighters.View on the film:Lighting the fuse in the era when all the guys were firing with all guns blazing, director David Chung enthusiastic attitude towards doing a different type of Action flick sparkles across the swift run-time. Lassoing into the 1930's with a war against imperialist Japan, Chung makes the action scenes stand out by putting modern fire power aside for historical weapons, whose weight in gun fights and sword play gives the fights a heaviness, neatly balanced by a rip-roaring Adventure atmosphere of slow-motion Kung-Fu moves and colourful explosions.Fighting into the small village to save it from the boo-hiss Japanese baddies, the screenplay by Kan-Cheung Tsang perfectly compliments Chung style with the serial like mix of spies, break-neck action set-pieces,goofy comedy spots,and lead hero Ming-Ming given quiet moments that allow her family life to be seen, before Tsang throws them all into the next danger on the adventure. Charging into battle, the eye-catching Michelle Yeoh gives an extremely charismatic performance as Ming-Ming. Kicking the action with a graceful ease, Yeoh brings a real sense of excitement to Ming-Ming diving into a dangerous adventure, and lighting the fuse of the dynamite fighters.

This movie is oddly enough the essence of Hong Kong cinema, back from the late 1980's. The story is fairly simple, and spiced up with comedy elements, while the main focus of the movie is the martial arts and action sequences.The story is about a small group of people who has to rescue a guy from the clutches of Japanese invaders."Magnificent Warriors" ("Zhong Hua Zhan Shi") has elements of action and martial arts, obviously, and also elements of comedy and drama. There is sort of a light-hearted Indiana Jones touch to the movie as well.Michelle Yeoh does put on a good performance here, martial arts and action-wise, as the movie is not heavy on dramatic acting performances.If you enjoy martial arts movies and/or Asian cinema in general, then you should watch "Magnificent Warriors" for the action that it is.

"Magnificent Warriors" finds its leading star, Michelle Yeoh, in top form: her speed and dance-like grace make her fight scenes a pure pleasure to watch (she's also good with a whip....and a rope....and a spear....well, you get the idea). And as a bonus, there is another girl, the beautiful and feisty Cindy Lau, who fights as well! Richard Ng, perhaps better known for his role in the "Lucky Stars" films, provides the comic relief, and he's actually quite funny here. The action offers a good mix of martial arts and large-scale battle scenes, and the story is (after the first 30 minutes) engaging and at times even inspiring. The production is spectacular and the music score appropriately epic. If you want to see an Asian take (plus a female twist this time) on the Indiana Jones formula, this is a much better choice than Jet Li's "Dr. Wai And The Scripture With No Words". (***)

After going to see "In The Line Of Duty 2" and having been impressed with Michelle Khan - both in terms of fighting and in terms of beauty - I didn't need much urging to go and see "Zhong hua zhan shi" ("Born Fighter"), but I was a bit disappointed.The fighting scenes were good, for sure, but the movie's comic relief was allowed to take up too much time (of course, this could have been a result of Barbadian censorship; I still remember seeing "Coming to America" and hearing Eddie Murphy's only four-letter word in the only movie being cut out, never find the fact that it also cut out the point of the joke), and ultimately diluted the movie's effect. But things worked out okay for Michelle in the end...