Reviewed by: Harlock Date: 02/20/2007 third movie of emperor Chien Lung serie, which should be called The Adventure of emperor Chien Lung Part 2, we follow him again on his "incognito" journey... Again i have found this movie really entertaining, the emperor, his court official and the imperial Scholar makes a great trio. i imagine that if they have make many follow up to the first movie, it's because they we're well received in Hong Kong theaters at the time, surely because of the great cast and the magnificent costumes and sets. again if you are looking for a kungfu movie, this is not for you Reviewer Score: 10

Reviewed by: MrBooth Date: 01/01/2007 Summary: 3/10 - maybe better if you speak the language This was the first of the Emperor Chien Lung films that I decided to watch, for some reason, so I'm not sure how it builds on the previous two. In this film, the Emperor travels incognito and encounters various characters who affect in him some way (presumably the implication is that these encounters shape his leadership of the country). The film is bookended by vignettes of the Emperor challenging his wittiest courtier with various supposedly impossible bets. The film is rather episodic, and seems to rely heavily on linguistic tricks and puns which render the 'wittiness' of many scenes largely incomprehensible to one who does not speak the language - or perhaps I'm being generous in assuming that it would make a difference, since other supposedly witty or amusing moments that were not obviously based on wordplay were still not very witty or amusing (as a rule of thumb, any time a film feels the need to add a "comedy" sound effect to indicate that something is funny, it really isn't). Whether the flaw was in the viewer or the viewed, the result was that I was not much entertained by the Emperor's voyage, and my mind had wandered before the end credits rolled. The production values are typically high (i.e. nice sets, costumes), and there's a brief action scene that raised my interest momentarily, but not enough that I'd recommend the film - at least not to anybody not fluent in Cantonese or Mandarin. Reviewer Score: 3

Reviewed by: mpongpun Date: 07/05/2003 Interesting flick by Li Han Hsiang on one of China’s greatest Emperors, Chien Lung, who ruled during the 18th Century. Unlike some of Li Han Hsiang’s films dealing with Chinese royalty, Li Han Hsiang changes his approach and tones down the seriousness of the film by portraying the Emperor as calm, down to Earth ruler, who was always in touch with the commoners. Emperor Chien Lung liked to travel through China’s countryside incognito to hear the opinions of the common person, learn about the people’s customs, their thoughts and feelings, official corruption, and to get a reading on the level of loyalty among the country. During Chien Lung’s illustrious reign, China was peaceful and wealthy. In this flick, which I believe is a true story based on one of the Emperor’s travels, the Emperor travels to some place in Southern China with two of his subjects, Liu Yung (Li Kun) and Rong An (Chiang Nan). For the rest of the flick, it plays out like a contest as the Emperor and Rong An try to get over Liu, by daring him to partake in some crazy bets. Each time, the witty Liu succeeds and wins each of the best Royal prizes such as a jade ring, a royal pouch, and a load of money. Nevertheless, none of the items won by Liu satisfies him. His desire is to win a Royal Dragon robe so that he can parade in it for the entire world to know. Fortunately, Liu wins a tough bet and is given the robe as a prize, but in the end, the Emperor and Rong An get the last laugh.