Tsui Hark should not have attempted to go at this one alone. John Woo had dropped out by this point, and was wise too, as this 3rd and final in the series came to a terrible finish.

I always had hoped there would be a third installment, but was not thinking they would bring the film back in time (a prequel). This is set in the early years of Mark (Chow Yun Fat) during the war. He is the only character from the previous two films to be here again, everyone else is missing - a mistake in itself. Instead we have terrible acting by Tony Leung (Ka Fei) who made me want to slap him all through the movie, and a very unconvincing role by Anita Mui, who again didn't do much of a good job.

The movie in all honesty is okay if it were not part of the series, but as the final part of such a good series has come to an abrupt end. I must say, as the movie got to the last 30 minutes or so, I was beginning to enjoy it a bit, and the ending is quite good, but the rest of it seemed to drag.

If you haven't seen this, I can only advise you that you should rent it, not buy it. But if I were given the choice again, I would have just watched the first two, and then would be able to praise the series more (thinking there were just 2 films). A bit of risk then watching this one, your appriciation for the original 2 films will be dropped. This was always purely a money grab, to squeeze every last penny they could get out of the series, but just ruined it.

I can neither recommend watching or leaving this one, because I truly think it spoils the first 2 films.