Insurrection nips at the heels of the evil Qin Dynasty.Warrior/general Xiang Yu (played broadly by Ray Lui) and conniving Liu Bang (Zhang Feng Yi) join forces to win, at the cost of civil war. Once accounts are settled, diplomatically inexperienced Xiang Yu doesn't expect the inevitable treachery from his rival. Rosamund Kwan and Gong Li are good as the wives of the generals. Excellent use of wide-screen, and some okay battle scenes with lotsa blood, dust, and Chinese gong noises; but the pace is like lead, the camera angles mostly static, the script generic, the lighting implausible (with shadows sometimes coming from three directions at once!), and Stephen Shin's direction completely styleless. Not to mention that the movie's three hours long.

(2/4)



[Reviewed by Steve Spinali]