14 out of 16 people found the following review helpful:

Boring and dull

King1and from , 1st June, 2008

Very, very disappointed in this film, heard so much about it and was made by the, 'Crouching Tiger hidden Dragon' team I was expecting so much, but alas wasn't to be. As usual with Asian films, wonderful colours and sweeping shots, big wide angled scenes all excellent as you would expect. Ok, now I have the one star out the way, here comes why it didn't get me wet..... Very slow, I'm talking Snail pace in the telling of revenge, lust and lots of crying. Yes this film will depress you and for some will need a good Man size box of tissues. Right the story.... Prince to the Emperor loses his beloved to his Father, (the Emperor) and so leaves for peace, acting and music hours and miles away from the kingdom. While away, younger brother to the Emperor kills his older Brother and takes over the Kingdom and takes his sister in law as his wife. Confused yet? The younger brother, (now Emperor) holds a banquet and all participants have reason for revenge...... To get to the end as I have mentioned previously takes an age and really unless you love Asian films with lots of sword fights, (but nothing out of the ordinary) then you might like this. If your the sort of person who loves martial arts but hates love stories then stay away as we have none of the first but lots of the second.

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6 out of 6 people found the following review helpful:

The Banquet

A Customer from Bangor, 14th January, 2009

Excellent entertainment. Visually stunning. Terrific movie - as most Asian movies tend to be.

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5 out of 5 people found the following review helpful:

*** May contain spoilers ***

Chinese Hamlet

A Customer from Poole, 4th October, 2008

This film very much reminded me of Shakespeares Hamlet. Transferred into an old Chinese Dynasty, packed with fantastic pictures (you could take the stills and hang them up on your wall, as with most Asian films), a bit of fantasy, a good portion of martial art and action, traditional Chinese wisdom and love. Some people might find it long-winded, but I think great pictures throughout the film compensate the length. The story certainly is far-fetched, but which of these aristocratic-heroic stories are not? Strangely, I just had seen Zefirelli's 'Hamlet' with Mel Gibson, and in comparison, this Chinese 'version' touched me a lot more - probably because I am a visual person.

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3 out of 4 people found the following review helpful:

The Banquet

stuthedragon from from Thirsk, 3rd September, 2008

Very long winded, not much action and boring towards the end with all the main stars dying.

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Violent and dull

A Customer from London, 18th December, 2009

I was very disappointed by this film. It started well but the action was ponderous and there was too much gory violence so I abandoned it.

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*** May contain spoilers ***

same old same old

72trailsofsmoke from , 23rd October, 2009

Another po-faced, thoroughly miserable big-budget martial arts movie with the now all-too-familiar action sequences and a downbeat ending. I love martial arts movies and remember back in the 90's fans pining for the great old-school classics but now I'm finding myself looking back to the 80's and 90's when martial arts movies were exciting and fun and wishing we could see something a bit more lively and upbeat that all this 'everyone is miserable and now they are all dead' business that we get these days. Its not that this is a bad film as such, far from it - it looks great, the action is of course well-staged, Zhang Ziyi is as beautiful as always and Daniel Wu seems to have finally fixed that dodgy-looking upper lip that always made it hard to take him seriously - its just that it feels lifeless. Check out the life and energy crackling through Ching siu-tung's 'Swordsman' trilogy or Yuen woo-pin's hugely entertaining 'Iron Monkey' for a truly entertaining kung fu experience instead.

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Disappointing

Monkeybutler from , 8th October, 2009

This is beautifully shot but lacks the wow factor found in the bold colour themes of Hero or House of Flying Daggers. It has fantastical wire work fight scenes but they seemed few and had none of the energy and obvious skill on show in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The acting was good but in conveying the tightly controlled emotions of formal court life it became very hard to have sympathy for any of the characters. The set up had potential but the telling of the tale was so slow that they seemed to be eeking out a short story. As you can tell, I don't believe that this met the standard of it's better known peers - it certainly didn't meet my expectations. It was interesting to a point but overall the sensation was that they were just trying to cash in on the trend for lush looking slow mo filled period pieces without really using many of the highest quality ingredients which has attracted people to them in the first place.

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Beautiful cinematography

A Customer from Solihull, 21st September, 2009

I enjoyed this film for its beautiful cinematography, and you just cant fail to be drawn to Zhang Zigi's whenever she is on screen, but the plot line was far too drawn out. I found the story to be a little thin and even though there was a good basis, none of the threads seem to actually lead anywhere. I realise that the un-requited love played an extremely vital element but was disappointed how none of the characters seemed to really understand their own emotions. Nevertheless lovely to look act if nothing else.

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