To his credit, Chow Yun-Fat (even through a Mandarin dub) brings a nice sense of gravitas to the role. But even that can't bring "Confucius" to having much more weight than the fortune cookies the scholar's sayings are often printed on.

The film-makers go to great pains, via end title cards, to hammer the point that Confucius is regarded as the world's greatest scholar. But how did he get there? The actions Confucius takes, their results, and thus the movie as a whole, comes off more of a series of coincidences, rather than a thoughtful journey.