14 Schwerter (2011)

14 Schwerter: Directed by Frankie Chan. With Cecilia Cheung, Xiaoqing Liu, Richie Jen, Pei-Pei Cheng. In early 11th century China, the Song Dynasty is being invaded by armies of the rival state Western Xia. Yang, the last of a long line of Song generals, is killed and his widowed wife Mu leads other widows into battle to save their dynasty.

“When I purchased this movie from Amazon, it was with a certain amount of expectation to it; because it had Cecilia Cheung in it, plus it also brandished u0026quot;impressiveu0026quot; and u0026quot;a genre breakthroughu0026quot; on the cover. Uhm, yeah, what genre are they making a breakthrough in? Having seen the movie, I sit here somewhat dazzled. Why? Well, because the movie was only partially as I had expected it to be. The good part about the movie is that it is sort of an epic movie in itself, and they managed to build up a good sense of believability with the sets and the whole feeling to the movie.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe armors and the costumes in the movie were amazing to look at. There were so many small details in everything that it was just spectacular. And that is one of the better parts of the movie, because they really managed to bring the feel of the given era to life on the screen.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAnd the battle scenes were grand and mostly epic. Lots of really nice fighting, action and choreography here. You might notice that I said u0026#39;mostlyu0026#39;. Yeah, because there were scenes during the fight that were painfully obviously staged and looked that way as well.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe less than impressive aspects of the movie, were many of the death scenes were just hilarious to look at, reminding me of something from the old black and white movie genre. You see someone struggling, then falling down awkwardly and laying still. It was just too staged and fake, and most of the death scenes in the movie here were just among some of the worst death scenes I have seen in similar movies.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAnother thing that didnu0026#39;t really aid the movie in its progress was the way the director attempted to mix epic warfare with the petty feudal matters of a house in the royal Chinese army. It just seemed a little bit too much – delving a bit too far into being a Chinese soap opera.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAnd finally, there were just too many characters to keep track of, and you just ended up shrugging your shoulders whenever one of the Yang family died, because you had no idea who it was or had any particular kind of u0026#39;on-screen relationshipu0026#39; to that person. It was like they were all extras in the frame just to add to the chaos.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn overall, then u0026quot;Legendary Amazonsu0026quot; – despite its cheesy title – is an average movie of this genre; nothing breakthrough to be had here. There are far better movies available in the same genre. And truth be told, then Cecilia Cheung and Richie Ren did little to raise the appeal of the movie. It was a fairly average experience, and hence, the 5 out of 10 rating from me.”