The trailer promises glorious Hero-like battles, Crouching Tiger-like intrigue. Well, we get the intrigue, intrigue is the order of the day, or at least the order of 95% of the movie. Yeesh, an hour and a half into the thing you've had about all the damn intrigue you can take. Someone bloody die already!

That said, the intrigue does serve to develop into a plot involving plenty of deceit, hidden loyalties, shifting allegiances and secret relationships i.e.; something quite complex, albeit with a central focus around drinking medicine in the form of tea. As the central plot develops and it becomes clear who of our main characters will team up for a planned coup, it's a pity that their foresight didn't mirror the complexity of their scheming.

If you spend a considerable amount of time and resources planning something as delicate as a coup, you don't leave anything to chance if you can help it, such a non-trusted family member who discovers the truth about said plot, and is known to be a considerable risk of yappin' to the wrong people about it. It may very well be an idiotic oversight from the writers, but more likely it was a tactic to deliberately create yet another plot twist towards the end, however artificial it seems. And it does seem artificial. There's more left-field revelations in the last 15 minutes than spelling mistakes in an American dictionary.

Although, when the battles do begin, they are quite spectacular. That though has more to do with the art direction of the sheer numbers of Chinese extras, than the choreography of any fight sequence. There's one decent sword duel, and that's at the beginning, the rest of the action - and there's not much - basically involves streams of armies running through alleys and courtyards.

There's some very pretty stuff, but there's little to hook you in. Even the process of unravelling who knows what about who and what they're going to do about it, (which is where the intrigue lies) becomes something of a non-event in the end as all plans are effortlessly circumvented by the status quo. I suppose it's a lesson in futility, don't cross the man type thinking. Thinking that's as retarded as the philosophy peddled in Hero.

out of ten

Reviewed by Paul Boschen