What would be an attempt to cash in on the mega success of Peter Chan's THE WARLORDS just the year before ends up falling quite flat for AN EMPRESS & THE WARRIORS. And that's due to one significant element in this otherwise heavily warring-themed movie: The romance subplot between Princess Yan Feier (Kelly Chen) and Duan Lan Quan (Leon Lai). Did director Ching Siu Tung think out of the box the the point of almost turning an ancient war movie into a romance movie set in ancient times? It seriously wasn't needed. Setting yourself apart from others is admirable but it's got to be done logically with good timing and execution. It's a failure here, which explains the movie's overall low popularity today.

Other than Kelly Chen, Leon Lai, and Donnie Yen as the Hong Kong acting representatives the cast includes a vast of Mainland Chinese actors that really impresses in their respective roles. Guo Xiaodong as the main villain, recurring Mainland Chinese kung fu movie favorite Chen Zhihui -- of FEARLESS and IP MAN fame -- as the main henchman, Kou Zhenhai, and Zhou Bo all portray and immerse themselves into their characters with no flaws. But let's not forget about the one and only Donnie Yen, who impresses with performing action scenes as always. But with this movie, he actually does a good job attempting to improve his acting skills -- which he hadn't done since the mid 1990s. His character is one of the highlights in the acting department as loyal general Muyong Xuehu going his way of protecting Princess Yan Feier from evil forces outside and within his army of soldiers to good effect. It's nice to see Donnie progress and improve his acting skills -- after so many years making action movies -- which has always been subjected to negative criticism, even to this day despite proving several times that he can actually transform into characters in great ways.

That being said, the movie spends too much amount of time covering a useless subplot of Princess Yan Feier being saved and taking interest in Duan Lan Quan, which was a total waste of time. The movie could've just invested on all characters relevant to the warring events and made the story linear.

So the story and few characters doesn't quite hit home. What about the action scenes? The warring scenes -- also handled by Ching Siu Tung -- are of good quality and may satisfy those that love Chinese war movies set in ancient warring times. For Donnie Yen fans, the movie is quite disappointing. Donnie only has three action moments, with the final confrontation scene against a small army being his biggest moment in the movie.

Taking out the aforementioned subplot, and adding more fight set-pieces for Donnie Yen would've made a huge difference for AN EMPRESS & THE WARRIORS. So overall, the movie has portions that entertains but leaves a lot to be desired.