All the criticisms of SS in the reviews below are accurate (though some will be more put off by them than others): there's no character development, the storyline is very basic, the actors mostly don't do much (although I thought the guy who played the bad guy did a good job), things jump around a bit and don't always seem strictly logical. Basically, it simply must be true that there is a four hour version in Tsui Hark's back pocket because leaving almost half the movie on the cutting room floor explains just about every flaw everyone's mentioned.

But I'll add two more that weren't. First, I really didn't like the psycho-villains; painting up their faces in a disturbing way, giving them ugly haircuts and a sick appetite for blood, and having them perform ultra-violence really puts me off. Quentin Tarrantino is the only one I can think of who gets close to pulling it off (e.g. Go Go from Kill Bill). I think it's laziness of the screenwriter, because it's much more difficult to make a violent villain human (and much scarier because they can then be identified with and one can imagine meeting up with one).

Second, the sudden insertion of violent sex scenes that appear strictly gratuitous more than annoys me. I'm not a puritan, and SS doesn't "show" anything anyway, but when the movie's rolling along and then suddenly someone's trying to rape someone, and there's no point to it, is jarring an unnecessary.

Having affirmed everyone else's criticisms and added a couple new ones, I have to say that this movie is still watchable and far from a waste of time. Yes, it doesn't appear to be the movie Tsui Hark actually made, and yes it has a lot of flaws, but there's still a lot left. The fight scenes are really good, it's visually very appealing, and maybe most important, it kept my attention for the full two and half hours. So although I wished I could have seen the legendary four hour SS, the one I did see was worth my time. I give it a 7.5.