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蜀山傳 (2001)
The Legend of Zu


Reviewed by: j.crawford
Date: 04/14/2012
Summary: Eye candy. Yes.

This will be the 23rd review of The Legend of Zu [2001] at HKMDb. It is amazing that with all these words on the movie that there are only 5 poster images in the gallery. Several of the members used the "eye candy" label in their reviews. I concur. This was a highly anticipated and promoted project from director Tsui Hark and most often these films are perceived disappointments. This period of Hark's output was in a downturn from which he has rebounded nicely thank you very much.

Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: Hyomil
Date: 04/07/2011


Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: dandan
Date: 04/25/2008
Summary: warriors, come out to play...

insomnia, a strange and evil being, has returned after a two hundred year absence to threaten the clans that live in the mountains of zu. whitebrows (sammo hung) entrusts sky king (ekin cheng) and red (louis koo) to guard the blood cave, where insomnia is building up strength for a final attack, and develop their skills, whilst he goes into meditation to find the missing piece of a three pronged attack. still, the combination of the weapons of enigma (cecila chung) and thunder (patrick tam) may also help...

well, i've always loved 'zu : the warriors from the magic mountain', but have always avoided this; tsui hark's own, cgi laden, re-imagining of the story. still, when after picking up the dvd for hk$9, i decided to give it a whirl. some people seem to think that his is an incredibly deep, spiritual film; others, a shallow, effects laden, waste of a good cast, which is a bit of fun. personally, i think it is a huge, over-blown, ball of ridiculousness. and, great fun with it...

the cast is strong: from ekin cheng, louis koo and sammo hung, to cecilia cheung, kelly lin, wu jing and zhang ziyi. all of whom are more than adequate, without really standing out from the pack. then there's the special effects: for a 2001 hong kong production, they're pretty good and certainly don't detract from your viewing pleasure. then there's the action: if you're expecting something on par with the, wire heavy, choreography of 'zu : the warriors from the magic mountain', then you'll be disappointed as there's almost nothing along those lines here. if you want people flying round, with cgi assisted weaponry and generally over the top fantasy and spectacle, then you've come to exactly the right place.

as for the narrative, it's kinda like a remix of 'zu : the warriors from the magic mountain'; familiar, but different, changed and designed for a different audience. then again, with the film progressing at a rather swift pace and having enough strong visuals to draw you in, it doesn't even really matter that huge swathes of the film's subtitles seem to have been left off the dvd. there's a story there, but it's by no means the reason to watch the film.

tsui hark has often been criticised, particularly regarding 'the legend of zu', for having the flair and the ideas, but not the character development to go with it. if you think that you may agree with this point of view, then the film probably isn't for you. if you want to watch something which is hugely creative and not worry about anything beyond what you are seeing on screen from moment to moment, then you'll probably enjoy 'the legend of zu'...

good stuff...


Reviewed by: kiliansabre
Date: 09/10/2006
Summary: Lack of Drama Meets Impressive CGI

In this quasi sequel to Tsui Hark's earlier piece, clans of immortals battle evil among floating mountains. Personally, the visuals worked for me and though the CGI was a bit too much at times, it still was all very majestic looking. The main problem I have with these sort of CGI based HK fantasies is that the drama tends to be sedated; here it's particularly bland. The plots themselves are interesting enough, but there is no real impact as the characters for the most part stay straight faced and emotionally unaffected by the things happening around them save for the spiritual transitions that come from it. That said, still worth a watch, especially if you want to see the first one retranslated into modern times.

Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: Arshadnm6
Date: 04/11/2005
Summary: Lot's of CGI and good cast, but disappointing in places.....

The over ambitious, state-of-the-art special effects spectacular sequel to Tsui Hark’s ‘Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain’. This movie not only contains probably the most number of special effects every witnessed in any HK Movie but has a collection of Mega Stars, which results in the movie bursting with artistic eye-candy.

Ekin Cheng and Cecilia Cheung are substituted for Adam Cheng and Brigitte Lin, from the older version, to face off in a new conflict with new challenges. The basic plot is, King Sky (Ekin) the last remaining member of the Kun Lun Clan, lost his true love / senior martial art tutor Dawn (Cecilia) over two hundred years by the hands of the Evil Insomnia, a powerful force eager on destroying all of humanity and anything else that stands in it’s way. Now Insomnia has set its sites on Zu Mountain and every inhabitant that lives there is in trouble. O-Mei Clan, led by White Brows (Sammo Hung again!! as in the earlier version), possess the Thunder and Heaven Swords, which when combined together form a powerful weapon that has the ability to destroy insomnia once and for all.

White Brow conjures up a plan to reincarnate Hollow into an inexperienced martial artist (Wu Jing, whom appears in earlier work in ‘Tai Chi 2’), with hardly any knowledge of the martial arts world. With the help of the Heaven Sword Keep Enigma (Cecilia Cheung) he will regain his lost memory and once again know how to use Thunder Sword with its full potential. King Sky falls in love with Enigma (whom is obviously the spitting image of his long lost tutor), and white brows also seeks his help since King Sky is the only one that possesses the power of reincarnation.

This movie not only has great special effects, but the whole storyline and great selection of cast make this tale transpiring and almost invigorating. Louis Koo stars as O-Mei’s Top disciple ‘Red’ guarding the blood cave, where the dreadful Insomnia resides. We also have other appearances from Patrick Tam, Zhang Ziyi and Lau Shun (whom you might recognize as Wong Fei Hung’s Father in ‘Once upon a Time in China 3, 4 and 5’) all playing a small but very important role in the movie, in the destruction of Insomnia. Relying on just the storyline, Tsui Hark placed the ‘Legend of Zu’ on a unbalanced scale, focusing more on the Special Effects and CGI and less on character development, which fractures the cinematic equilibrium of the movie, resulting in more eye-candy and less references on character background. This is not to say ‘Legend of Zu’ is not such a great movie, it has a good line of well established cast with very little overacting or bad acting for that matter. Unfortunately Zhang Ziyi can’t help but play the young rebel martial arts student, once again wanting to exceed everyone, but obviously fails miserably, since there are too many good actors in this movie for her to ruin it and well she comes in about 10 – 15 minutes of the movie, thank-god!!

The only real complaint about this movie would be that Tsui Hark, tried to cram too much storyline into this movie, and hence the plot was completely lost. Having Yuen Woo Ping to action-choreograph this movie was a bonus and raised the bar of expectations quite a bit. Although the martial arts, was the core for this picture. The fight scenes are few and short and CGI used only displayed the characters powers and usage of weapons.

Overall a well made movie with some evident flaws and the final result being somewhat disappointing. Better luck next time, Tsui Hark!!!

Overall Rating: 7.9/10

Reviewer Score: 8

Reviewed by: Wilpuri
Date: 07/30/2003
Summary: Wow...!

This movie really shows, that USA is definitely not the only place where they can make great CGI... Beware hollywood, these guys will wipe the floor with you!

The plot was a bit... confusing, but the movie is just so gorgeous and fun that it really doesn't matter...

Don't get me wrong... this isn't just an eye-candy... it has great actor/actresses and the plot isn't CARBAGE... but of the main point in this movie is the great visual style.

Fantastic visualeffect spectacle from Mr. Hark!

6/5 Points!

Reviewer Score: 10

Reviewed by: Sydneyguy
Date: 06/01/2003
Summary: CGI spectular!!

The sequel to Zu: warriors of magic mountain with only Sammo Hung returning from the original movie. Like it's predessor, this movie did not do so well at the box office. While i don't understand why the original Zu was not a hit, i can understand why this was!!

Like the review below me, it's EYE candy. CGI effects put to good use but where is the storyline gone? I got confused on what was going on through the 2nd half of the movie!!

Is it me or was some of the characters voices dubbed? For what purpose?? Sammo Hung voice was dubbed and so was Lau Shun but what for??

As for the fighting CGI scenes, it looked like something from a video game!! A little overdone for me!!

While it's a galaxy of stars, Zhang Ziyi was wasted in such a small part as was Kelly Lin. The so called 7 fighters (or whoever they were) were just background statues except for PAtrick Tam (if he was one of the 7 but it was never properly explained).

The relationship with PAtrick tam and Zhang Ziyi was a complete waste of time. They are such minor characters (and limited screen time) that you couldn't care less what happened between them. What a waste of time!!

I may watch this again to see what i missed out on, but if you expecting something as good as the original, you will be disappointed!!

6/10


Reviewed by: ksbutterbox
Date: 03/29/2003
Summary: Total Eye Candy!! but that's all....

Great looking film.
But isn't close to the original as far
as charm and charismatic performances.
I like it...just don't love it.
(I still think the ending of "Sword Stained w/ Royal Blood") is one of the coolest last 5 minutes in HK film history! They used "wires" and sheer physical ability to hang and fight,edit, from those obstacles. That is a real artform......gone...CGI just doesn't come close to it in my book.


Reviewed by: Chungking_Cash
Date: 01/27/2003

And you thought "The Phantom Menace" sucked. A 104-minute exercise in everything that is wrong with post-handover Hong Kong cinema via writer, producer, director Tsui Hark, who in his prime was occasionally dubbed the Steven Spielberg of Hong Kong cinema.

Reviewer Score: 3

Reviewed by: Dyogenez
Date: 12/26/2002
Summary: Definitely an epic.

When talk with my roomate (ZarrSadus below) about this movie we agreed it had a lot going for it. It has a very interesting story, albiet hard to follow at times. It has the whole 'me against the world' aspect that makes great tales. The only thing that came to mind to compare it to was Lord of the Rings, in the feel of the story itself. The special effects are definetely important in creating a fantasy land, and although they are a MAIN part of the movie, i rarely noticed them. The acting was a little over the top at times, but was a small shortcomming to the scenes that followed. My only real complaint would be the actual fights weren't very long. Most of them were only a few seconds it seems, with a lot of time dancing around the opponents. Still a very good movie, better than Storm Riders in Story, though i'd prefer SR for acting and action.

8.5/10.


Reviewed by: addy
Date: 08/03/2002
Summary: The Unforgettable Red

Red played by Louis Koo is the only part of the film I enjoy. Neither the helmet or the monstrous makeup can hide his handsomeness.
Call this movie "The Chinese Star War"?-What a shame. Star Wars are popular because a 3-year-old can easily understand it. This movie is so hard to understand even by Chinese, not to say go international. Csui Hark -can't you make a less expensive and more entertaining movie anymore?


Reviewed by: kurama_tengu
Date: 06/09/2002
Summary: A Visually Amazing Epic.....Yet Confusing

Tsui Hark has been called a visionary by many. While he has amazed and entertained us with "A Chinese Ghost Story", "Iron Monkey", and "One Upon A Time in China", he is also responsible for "A Better Tomorrow III" and "The Master". With "The Legend of Zu", he has allowed his great imagination to run wild again...maybe too wild.

"The Legend of Zu" presents the viewer with a barrage of computer-generated special effects. The results are beautiful sceneries and enhanced battle scenes. While too busy for many, I was taken aback by the first 20 minutes. Until then, I considered "The Lord of the Rings" the most visually beautiful epic I had ever seen in the computer-fx generation. After completing "Zu", I now rank it second.

Where "Zu" fails, like the rest of Hark's failures is a good storyline. In addition, his character development is muddled. The story is a basic good vs. evil, but understanding the relationships of the characters to each other was quite confusing. Audiences will have a hard time seeing the purpose of certain characters as well. For example, Zhang Ziyi's character was unnecessary in my opinion unless Tsui intends to make a sequel and show the further development of her as a warrior. One wonders whether he cast her to take advantage of her newfound popularity from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".

Despite its shortcomings, I still believe Tsui has created a landmark epic that needs to be seen....if only for the special effects. Because of the visuals, I have overlooked the story holes since they are common in HK cinema. However, it disappoints me to know that if he paid a little more detail to the screenplay, we might be able to talk of "The Legend of Zu" as one of the millennium's great epics. [7.5/10]

Note: I have not seen "The Storm Riders" as of yet, so I am unable to compare the special effects or storyline as many reviewers have.

Reviewer Score: 7

Reviewed by: RLM
Date: 05/18/2002
Summary: Eye popping extravaganza

It has some basic similarities to the original but don't look too closely for them - they are basic.
Uses CG so stunning that they must been seen; they can't be adequately described using words. The plot? Well, one sentence will do -
Evil tries to take over the world, handful of magic Zu Warriors stop it.
A person might think that summary is terse and that surely the plot is fleshed out in more detail during the film- it isn't.
It's rather like suchi without the rice.
In fact, I liked Storm Riders more than this film; at least it had an interesting love triangle that made me interested in the story. Legend of Zu doesn't even have that going for it. To be fair, Zu's CG is ever so far more impressive and detailed than Storm Riders; in my opinion.
This film is worth to watch - even if only to catch the new production wave for future HK fantasy films. Without a doubt, Tsui Hark still delivers in the visual domain. Now, he needs to get back to story development like ACGS.


Reviewed by: Blue_Shadow
Date: 01/18/2002
Summary: Too Much....

Claimed to be the next big film, Legend of Zu had nothing much but an astonishing cast and over-the-top special effects.

When first heard about its production, I was dying to see this film and hoping it would produce the spark The Storm Riders did back in 1998. Shamingly it didn't. The crew focused too much on the special effects and the all-star cast that it forgot about making up a solid storyline.

This exceeding use of visual effects limited the actors' acting abilities. Also strangely enough, Yuen Woo Ping was the action choreographer but where was all the action? Only one scene come to mind, Zhang Ziyi's sword fight with the reincarnated Jacky Wu. The graphics got too carried away, so much that sometimes I couldn't make out what was, if anything, was real. I know The Storm Riders was very successful with its special effects but don't forget, it had a good storyline to coupled. It also didn't rely the backdrops and scenery on excessive computer graphics.

Now for anyone who enjoyed the film, don't take me wrong. I did enjoyed the film in some ways but it's just that it didn't meet the expectations of the audience and perhaps blemished the famous original version from the early 80's...I mean with an unbelievable cast like Ekin Cheng, Louis Koo, Cecilia Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, Sammo Hung, Patrick Tam, Kelly Lin and Jacky Wu and yet the film didn't make it big at the box-office?! I know a good cast doesn't necessarily mean a good film but it can bring us some excitement and allow us to witness some solid performances.

Overall, the film was OK but is nowhere near the standards of The Storm Riders if that was what the crew was aiming for. 5/10.


Reviewed by: MilesC
Date: 01/07/2002
Summary: Not exactly a complete film, but a fantastic spectacle...

The first time I saw this film (on the big screen, lucky me) I left the theater pretty unimpressed. The first twenty minutes made my jaw drop; "finally," I thought, "they came up with special effects that can do Tsui Hark's imagination justice." However, at some point it became apparent that the movie wasn't going to offer much more than special effects, and the film doesn't move towards much of a climax, since the whole film (I would estimate at LEAST half the shots) is saturated with CG effects.

Eventually, I gave it another chance, and I can enjoy the movie for what it is now, which is nothing more or less than the most technically advanced- and one of the most beautiful- films HK has ever produced. It all gets a little old by about minute 70, and it's disappointing that Tsui didn't match the technical sophistication with the emotionally-involving storytelling he's capable of- but I think it deserves watching as a landmark technical achievment. It is far superior to its genre-mate The Storm Riders in terms of both effects, pacing, and acting; the earlier film was dull and full of bad performances and boring characters, whereas Zu doesn't slow down long enough to even bother with characters and subplots.

I remember when I saw the original Zu with a friend, we agreed it was just too "busy" to be enjoyable, and that it might've been better if the effects that took up so much of the film had at least been good. That's exactly what the updated film is; still as busy and overwhelming as ever, but at least it looks cool this time.


Reviewed by: Inner Strength
Date: 01/07/2002
Summary: AT LAST

Firstly, I thought I had already reveiwed this, but don't know what happened to it. But I shall sum up again what I think.

Finally, the long awaiting remake of the classic 1983 movie, Zu. There has been many rumours over the years about this being done, and finally it has. "A visually stunning movie" is what I can best say about this. The special effects were used perfectly I think, unlike some others in 2001 like 'Shaolin Soccer' which used special effects too much and for no real purpose. But this is different, Tsui Hark has done wonders with his team on this, to create it's own world.

Tsui Hark had approached Brigitte Lin in person on several occations asking her (and rumoured to almost beg her) to appear in this even though she had retired. But she turned him down, and I guess from that, it pretty much proves that when she said she was retiring, she was serious. But still, even without her, it's great. One of the best films Hong Kong has to offer in 2001.

The legend continues...

Rating: 4/5


Reviewed by: danton
Date: 01/03/2002

Long awaited Tsui Hark remake of his early 80s classic that turned into a huge box office flop and has divided opinions among many fans. In fact, I'm actually at a loss as to how to describe it. It's unlike anything I've ever seen. Is it a good movie? Certainly not. On the other hand, the visuals are so stunning, so innovative, so overwhelming that I sat through the whole movie spellbound. This movie is a failure, but a very impressive one.

Why is this a bad movie? Well, there's not much of a story. Basically, it rehashes the plot from the original Zu Warriors, i.e. the world is threatened by an evil monster (this time around, going by the name of "Insomnia" rather than the Blood Monster of the original) that is all powerful and can only be defeated by combining the energy of two mystical swords. However, the movie manages to stuff this bare-thread plot with so much convoluted mysticism about immortals, magic and mysterious forces that I ended up completely bewildered.

Secondly, the script feels as if Tsui Hark looked at the final CGI swordfight in Storm Riders and said to himself: "Let's see if I can top this, and extend it to movie length". Well, he certainly succeeded at that. The movie starts with a bang, and never lets up - there are no pauses, no time to get to know the characters, to develop some atmosphere, it just heaps action upon action upon action. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, except that in this case the action is all computer-generated. Pretty much every single frame in this movie is a special-effects shot. There's no let up, nothing for the eye to relax even for a second. Instead, we're bombarded with one fantastical image after another, effect after effect, each one more mind-blowing than the previous one. This movie makes something like Storm Riders look like a silent B/W movie.

The actors make a heroic effort to get their characters noticed among this mind-boggling, vertigo-inducing smorgasbord of a visual mindtrip. Alas, to no avail. So they end up mostly floating in midair, throwing their hair back (Ekin Cheng is particularly good at that, but then again, he's had years of practice) and twirling their hands around. This hand-twirling of course directs their magic weapons, and these weapons take care of all the action for them, so the actors can remain motionless, whilst the various magic weapons have a go at each other. The magic weapons are all very impressive, but after a while I got kind of tired of all the various moon orbs, ming fire swords, etc and was just sorta hoping there'd be a real swordfight. And there actually was one for a brief moment (Zhang Ziyi doing the honours) which was so good that it made me really angry, considering how great the movie would have been with a bit more of this and a little less of the hand-twirling and the CGI-generated energy bolts. But I'll better get on with the review.

Tsui Hark succeeds in creating a world unlike anything you've ever seen. At times, it reminded me of the finale of Akira (completely different kind of movie, obviously - the comparison is made solely with respect to the level of visual overload). Which is a shame, because some of the images are stunning. For example, you have a main character's face breaking like an eggshell and the pieces dissolving into petals floating through the sky. Beautiful. Had he slowed down the pace a bit, explored some of these gorgeous images at greater length, the film might have worked better. As it is, it lacks any truly poetic or romantic or even comic moments. It's all dead serious and frenetic. And it feels claustrophobic. I almost let out a sigh of relief in the few scenes where he didn't use CGI and just shot actors in a recognizable real environment.

The original Zu Warriors also created a fantastical world, but it mixed that with true emotions, with slow poetic passages (especially in the ice palace). It had seemingly real people with real feelings. LoZ is just frenetic action with hardly any dialogue. I don't think there's a single moment in this movie where any of the characters just talk to each other (I mean talk like humans do, rather than warbling along about uniting the heaven sword and the thunder sword, finding the power of regeneration within, etc - you get the drift).

All of the above makes it sound like I truly hated this film. Well, I didn't. Actually, I really liked it! The movie takes what is arguably a genre that has been done to death and moves it in a direction never before seen. Much here is extremely innovative. With a better script, better developed characters and with more restraint in the use of CGI, this could have been a truly fantastic movie.

For the reasons mentioned above, I can't say much about the performance of the actors involved. Ekin Cheng and Cecilia Cheung play the leads, with Patrick Tam and Louis Koo in support. Cecilia plays dual roles, one of which making her look startingly like the young Brigitte Lin in the original Zu. Sammo Hung has a major role at the start, but vanishes after the first reel. Zhang Ziyi is hardly in this movie at all. The trailer is totally misleading in that respect. BTW, she's dubbed by a Cantonese voice actress. And Kelly Lam, who I thought was brilliant in Full Time Killer, has the strangest role of all - she plays sort of a demonic Tinkerbells with little screen time (more than Zhang Ziyi, though) and even less dialogue.

I do recommend this movie for the sheer power of the visuals. But for me at least, the emotional resonance to this movie was totally lacking. I am curious to see what other members of this forum think of it. I would think that anybody who enjoyed Storm Riders for the effects will be totally blown away by LoZ...


Reviewed by: pjshimmer
Date: 11/21/2001

Ekin Cheng, who has dominated HK cinema in recent years, also starred in TVB's Zu Mountain Saga series back in the early 90s.


Reviewed by: magic-8
Date: 11/21/2001
Summary: Hollow Eye Candy

Tsui Hark's "The Legend of Zu" is an ambitious and stunning visual tour de force that has no emotional core. The film is filled with great imagination, with plenty of ideas constantly streaming across the screen. Granted, the movie is a feast for the eyes, but becomes taxing without any sympathetic characters to help ward off the pomposity of the demigods that inhabit Zu Mountain.

The story concerns two groups battling each other for supremacy of Zu Mountain, basically, good vs. evil. Ekin Cheng, in another stoic performance, leads the good guys against Insomnia, or a computer generated demon. For a story that should be simple in nature, Hark overly complicates the plot and provides a lot of boring scenes that are filled with exposition, mainly from Sammo Hung as the Grand Master. Cecilia Cheung plays dual roles, while Louis Koo has the most visually appealing character in Red, a metallic-winged immortal, sworn to protect Zu Mountain. Zhang Zi Yi plays the lone mortal in the film, but her role was negligible.

Yuen Woo Ping's action choreography is very limited in that the special CG effects provide the means to the action, except in the confrontation between Cheng and Koo's doppelgangers, and the sword fight between Zhang and Jacky Wu. A notable action scene is the attack of Insomnia's dark warriors. In a film laden with CG, its good to know that detail was paid to the choreography, even if it was in front of a blue screen. Nobody seems to master the art of flying better than Yuen Woo Ping.

Overall, "The Legend of Zu" is a grand testament to Tsui Hark's vision and limitless sense of adventure. If Hark took the time to develop some characters that the audience could identify with, he'd have one hell of a movie, instead of this hollow eye candy.


Reviewed by: Trigger
Date: 11/20/2001
Summary: CGI

Tsui Hark is one of my favorite directors - I can't help but love the way he captures his visions on film time after time. I loved Time and Tide and simply adore pretty much all of his older films - including Knockoff which was critically panned across the board. He's known in some circles as the low-rent Spielberg, but personally I think dollar for dollar - Tsui Hark is much better than Spielberg. Speaking of dollars - Legend of Zu appears to have had quite a few spent on its production. The CGI is in almost ever frame of every scene. But I don't want to jump ahead of myself...

So Legend of Zu is related to Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain - a Tsui Hark film as well from the 80's. Many people adore Zu: Warriors and consider it a landmark film. It truly was a spectacle at the time and certainly holds up today. It's almost like a Star Wars of Hong Kong folklore. The original film had everything - adventure, comedy, great action, awe inspiring special effects and well developed characters. Legend of Zu didn't quite live up to the original except in the realm of special effects. It's a dazzling spectacle to say the least, but it lacks any of the personality, story, character development and comedy of the first. It has those elements in it, but they aren't quite as saturating.

I'd summarize the story, but to be honest - I couldn't make much sense of it. I found myself getting bored and getting near dozing off a few times. The story has a few references to the original film that I was able to recognize and I think it takes place several hundred years after the first film but in the same location. If I tried to explain it I would sound like an idiot, so I'll refrain. Just know that you can watch this with or without seeing the first film as this isn't quite a sequel... much like you can watch Evil Dead 2 without having seen Evil Dead.

The characters don't have much time to get developed here - there's a few that have a chance, but nothing really becomes of it. The film is just a big mess of people trying to perform outrageous aerial acrobatics with fireworks and lights in an attempt to thwart evil - all the while shouting things to each other. It's kinda like watching Power Rangers. I think this film was intended for kids in the same way that Episode 1 (star wars) was... lots of boring dialogue that doesn't really mean anything combined with a ton of CGI effects. But be aware that there is some blood here and there (heck, there's even a blood cloud).

The effects were damn cool though. It certainly raises the bar on HK special effects. Was CGI overused here? Perhaps, but probably not. It was appropriate for the type of film this was. I think people who loved Storm Riders and Man Called Hero will probably dig this film. I feel the same about Legend of Zu as I do about those two... fun to watch, but the story isn't engaging enough.

All I can say is that the DVD will probably become your new show-off disc - the visuals are as stunning as the Matrix and the subwoofer will certainly get a workout - there's a ton of low frequency sound effects in this that will cause your neighbors to have you evicted.

Overall, the film was okay - for what it was I'll have to give it a 6/10 all things considered. It probably deserves a worse score, but the film managed to dazzle me for an hour and a half and I think that's all it set out to do. It won't win any awards for acting or writing or anything else, but it might be a contender for "best CGI and/or Special Effects".

I'd reluctantly recommend this and suggest it mainly to audiophiles and home theatre freaks.

Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: MrBooth
Date: 11/17/2001
Summary: Sensory spectacle

LEGEND OF ZU - Whoosh, swirl, bam! Repeat. Tsui Hark is well known for the pace of his movies... he often tends to throw spectacle at the viewer pretty much without pause for rest, and LEGEND OF ZU is perhaps the apex of this. There's barely moment when some immortal isn't swishing their weapons or themselves about the screen, or shouting some vaguely incomprehensible but important sounding phrases out. A real audiovisual spectacle... this is a movie that really needs to be watched on a big scale home theatre setup to be appreciated (or in a theatre I guess!)... the visual and sound effects are all quite mindblowing. But that's basically all there is to the film. I sat throughout the 2 hour length quite fascinated and certainly impressed, but was aware that I wasn't exactly "enjoying" it. I didn't crack a smile once, or feel any other emotional connection really.

What the movie is missing is the human element... in the original Zu, we had Yuen Biao as the naive innocent dropped into a world of immortals with powers and issues that were quite beyond his experience and understanding. We followed his confusion, amazement and growth. In LOZ, the equivalent of Yuen Biao is simply skipped, and the viewer is dropped directly in amongst the world of the immortals. The trouble being that we don't really understand, and hence don't really care, about their issues. I don't think it would have mattered to me at all whether the Zu Mountain warriors or Insomnia had won their battle. It looks as if maybe Zhang Ziyi was meant to play the human role, but evidently they could only afford about 10 minutes of her screen time, so her appearance seems rather contrived and unrelated to the rest of the movie.

But anyway, there's some fantastic special effects and lots of appropriately epic sounding things being shouted out, and it certainly flys by. Just don't judge it as a 'movie' (because it's a bad one), just consider it a sensory experience!

DVD quality is v. nice - anamorphic w/ reasonable transfer, and *great* sound mix - oh yes, forgot to mention that the soundtrack is really good! However, I don't know if it was just the office player misbehaving, but there seemed to be a couple of 30 second+ sections where the subtitles disappeared completely (including the first 30 seconds of the movie). It didn't seem to matter much though

Reviewer Score: 7

Reviewed by: zarrsadus
Date: 10/26/2001
Summary: Great action and visuals, little else...

As other reviewers have stated, the plot in this movie is rather hard to follow. By comparison though, the storyline was not nearly as hard to follow as Ashes of Time hehe. Anyways, even if I didn't understand fully on my first watching everything that was going on in this film, I truley enjoyed myself the whole time. The special effects were amazing, much much improved over The Storm Riders, which was pretty crazy and the best I had seen until now. While the acting was only mediocre and the plot rather hard to follow, the visuals and action sequences make up for it. 8 out of 10.

Reviewer Score: 8

Reviewed by: senordingdong
Date: 10/22/2001
Summary: High on eye candy, low on story telling

Imagine 2 whole hours of battling using CG galore, and constantly going at the pace of a climactic scene. If you've watched Stormriders, stretch one of the battles from 10min to 120min, and you'll know what to expect. Looking for a story?? You'll be hard pressed to find one, as it seems that one doesn't even exist until the second half the movie. In fact, I still don't know exactly what the role of Zhang Ziyi's character is! If you want lot's of eye candy, this is the movie for you, but if you want an in depth story, look elsewhere.

2.5/5


Reviewed by: Paul Fox
Date: 08/19/2001
Summary: New Zu A Digital Delight...

For those that do not know him, director Tsui Hark is the Chinese equivalent of George Lucas. His films tend to be rooted in classic Chinese plots and heavily endowed with the latest in special effects. His original film Zu: The Warriors From The Magic Mountain (1983) was one of the first in Hong Kong to borrow and learn from western effects masters of that era. Now with his remake, he has taken his story further visually than any Hong Kong film to date. The sheer number of CG effects in each scene make Zu's CG laced predecessors like The Storm Riders (1998) and The Duel (2000) pale in comparison.

But indeed a film cannot be based on visuals alone, even full CG works like Final Fantasy are still at the mercy of human writers, directors and voice actors. So while Zu's visuals do indeed shine, the performances are less than brilliant. Ekin Cheng seems stoic and almost bored at times with his role. Cecilia Cheung, as Dawn is made up to look almost exactly like Brigette Lin in the original, but as the later reincarnated Enigma she seems more of a damsel in distress and less like an avenging heroine. There are some bright spots however. It is nice to see Sammo Hung, from the original film, return this time to play the character of White Brow. Louis Koo as Red also gives a strong performance and is arguably the most interesting character of the film.

While the effects alone are enough to draw anyone to see the film, western audiences not familiar with Chinese folklore/fantasy might be a bit confused with the odd name translations (i.e. Insomnia, Enigma), various reincarnations and out of body experiences that appear throughout the plot. But truth be told the new version of Zu is far more solid in its storytelling than the original. Of course this should come as no surprise given the fact that Tsui Hark has gained almost two decades of expedience since the first film.

With the undoubted success that the new Zu will bring at the box office, one wonders what direction Tsui Hark will move in next. Are we to see new digitally enhanced versions of his other classics like A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) or will he move on to tackle entirely new titles? Regardless, his continued devotion to Hong Kong Cinema in a time when many other big names have left for the west continues to breathe new life into the industry.


Overall review rating - 4 (out of 5)

Review by Paul Fox

Location: Fanling Town Center Cinema

Time: Saturday 19 August 12:30pm