Watched a movie the other day with Yu Sheng and Chee Hao. Good question as to what the chinese name of the movie was. The english name though was much simplier. Battle of wits. A brief synopsis. It was the period of the warring states and the kingdom of Liang (population: 4000) was under seige by the mighty kingdom of Zhou with 100,000 troops. In a desperate attempt to starve off the attack, the king of Liang sought help from the tribe of Mozi (pronounced mo4 zi3). Brief interlude for a history lesson from Yu Sheng. The tribe of Mozi was actually a group of people who were famed for their philosophies on 'universal love'. Mozi was actually more of a school of thought rather than a tribe. But since this is a show, I guess they could do whatever they wanted and still get away with it. The tribe were also famed for their great defensive strategies during battles which was where this story started off with.

Mozi apparently dispatched only a single person called Mozi Ge Li (Andy Lau) to aid the kingdom of Liang (probably for dramatic effects). He came at a time when all hope was lost and the king of Liang has already prepared to surrender to the mighty Zhou forces camping at their doorstep. Ge Li obviously in great showmanship style ignited the passion of patriotism in the kingdom and took over as overall commander of the Liang forces. Through a series of great strategic moves which though lacking in originality, managed to drive back wave after wave of Zhou forces. When it finally appeared that the Zhou were retreating, the king of Liang in classic chinese fashion feared for his power after witnessing the widespread support and influence that Ge Li has over his people. He ordered Ge Li to be assassinated and all his supporters purged. This was where I felt the show should have ended. Classic chinese story of betrayal and how one's good intentions are never quite interpreted the way it should.

But they had to drag the movie to 3 hours just because Andy Lau is the star. They threw in a sappy love scene of Ge Li with the calvary 'princess'. It was so painful I swear I was the only one laughing at the scene when she threw herself onto him when throughout the whole movie, they barely said 5 sentences to each other. It was sad really. They also made a really poor attempt to explore Ge Li's universal love principle. Did I mention it was a poor attempt? Ok I'm sorry. It was a really painful attempt. You could see the effort. Really. I just didn't get it. No background knowledge, no through in debt explaination of his philosophy, no conflicts, nothing. Out of the blue, I saw Ge Li sitting down looking sad because he killed some guys and some chick tells him his love philosophy cannot work and stuff. Like come on man.

I really hoped the last 30 minutes would be good but alas, I was disappointed. A last ditch attack on Liang with 1000 men (they really enjoy playing with numbers) because with Ge Li on the run Liang is hopeless. They even had the soldiers flying through the air via some hot air balloon thingy which I am so sure was invented by the chinese. Again the show should have ended there but NOOOOO. Ge Li had to come back and save the day in another typical chinese finale. Ge Li had a final showdown with the Zhou general bot with swords but with words. What was the exchange about? Saving the men who were fighting for them, retreat to minimise losses, war was meaningless...etc. In short universal love. Seriously, I thought this was the director's last ditch sad attempted to justify his inclusion of universal love into the movie.

My take on the movie? I thought that it was poorly planned, half assed and doomed from the word go. The director couldn't make up his mind between fighting and philosophy. He tried to do too many things which just makes everyone confused. The best movies aren't the longest. They are the ones which tells the best story. The one which gets the intended message across in a very clever way. If you are out to make an epic movie with 100,000 men, by all means go ahead. Heck, you can even have Andy Lau cutting all 100,000 men and I would have watched it. Just stick to the bloody plot.