The Lost Bladesman

[GeneChing]

Donnie too short?
Guan Yu was over 8 feet tall.

Is Donnie Yen upset at being described as too short to play Guan Gong?
Sat, Jul 03, 2010
The Star/Asia News Network

HONG Kong martial arts actor Donnie Yen is upset at being described as too short to play the role of Guan Yu, reported Nanyang Siang Pau.

Guan Yu, also known as Guan Gong, was one of the best-known Chinese historical figures to serve under Emperor Liu Bei during the Three Kingdoms era.

Due to his loyal and righteous character, he has been deified and is widely worshipped by the Chinese, especially those living in the southern part of China and Hong Kong.

Yen, who recently starred as the legendary Wu Chun exponent Ip Man, had been asked by film director Alan Mak Siu-fai to take up the role as Guan Yu in the movie The Lost Bladesman.

During a press conference to announce the new film in Beijing, China, recently, Yen, who is 174cm tall, was asked if he had to wear "special shoes" to make him look taller on screen. According to historical records, Guan Yu was supposedly 274cm tall.

Yen seemed furious over the question and answered: "Of course, there are special shoes - many of them. It's a costume movie ma!"

Mak then came to Yen's rescue and said the ancient system used to measure height was smaller, thus making Guan Yu seem very tall.

[doug maverick]

lol, yea they made him wear lifts, donnie is actually a decent height and i very well doubt that general kwan was over eight feet.lol there is a bunch of stuff on this movie actually. ill collect it all and post tonight..

[GeneChing]

Is half a year enough time?

The Lost Bladesman' to Hit Cinemas on April 28
08:28, January 28, 2011


The first poster of "The Lost Bladesman" [Photo: sina.com]

The historical action movie "The Lost Bladesman" ("Guan Yunchang"), starring Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen, will open in Chinese cinemas on April 28, Sina.com.cn reports.

The production company also released a poster featuring Yen's look in the movie. Since it was announced that Yen would portray famous general Guan Yu, also known as Guan Yunchang, in the movie, many fans have doubted whether he could look like Guan as the latter's story is so popular in China and his statue can be seen in many temples throughout the country.

"Yen's look will be in accordance with most people's visual image of Guan Yu," said film directors Alan Mak and Felix Chong.

Yen said he hoped audiences could accept his performance as Guan Yu.

Actor Jiang Wen stars as famous warlord Cao Cao in the movie, a very important character in the story, which tells about how Guan Yu tries to escape from Cao Cao and return to his brother Liu Bei.

Alex Fong Chung-Sun plays Liu Bei, and actress Sun Li stars as a young woman named Qi Lan, who does not appear in the original story.

[Hebrew Hammer]

Am looking forward to seeing this release, not only because of the story but hoping for some great weapon work with his halberd/glaive.

Hopefully someone can find a trailer...

[doug maverick]

Is half a year enough time?

well the site wu-jing.org had all the info then when i went there to repost the site crashed and i forgot all about it.

[Hebrew Hammer]

well the site wu-jing.org had all the info then when i went there to repost the site crashed and i forgot all about it.

Excuses! Did we give up after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!!!!! Nooo...we expect more out of you Douglas.

[Jimbo]

I don't believe Guan Yu was 8 feet tall, and certainly not by today's measurements. And if he were, he'd likely have had lots of physical problems. Unless he was a 'yeren'/sasquatch.

[Cdr.Instigator]

Excuses! Did we give up after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!!!!! Nooo...we expect more out of you Douglas.

Dam it man... All my life I thought Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program..

[GeneChing]

Maybe this will bump our Kwan Dao sales. I can dream, can't I?

Donnie Yen tackles iconic Three Kingdoms general
(AP) – 5 days ago



HONG KONG (AP) — Action star Donnie Yen has teamed with two of the filmmakers behind the hit Hong Kong crime thriller "Infernal Affairs" for what they call a "humanized" take on an icon from China's fabled Three Kingdoms period.

The epic battles of armies and wits from the Three Kingdoms era inspired the classic Chinese novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and countless TV and film adaptations.

Some of the more recent major movie productions include John Woo's two-part series "Red Cliff," which starred Cannes-winning actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai, and Daniel Lee's 2008 film "Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon," which featured Andy Lau, Sammo Hung and Maggie Q.

So how to break new ground when drawing from old material? With "The Lost Bladesman," which will be released across Asia on April 28, co-directors and co-writers Alan Mak and Felix Chong have zoomed in on general Guan Yu and tried to craft a more earthly character out of Yen's portrayal.

Guan is a historical figure who has been deified by the Chinese people as a symbol of loyalty and justice. To this day, statues of Guan are common at restaurants and shops in Chinese communities around the world.

In "The Lost Bladesman," Guan tries to escape after willingly becoming a prisoner to rival warlord Cao Cao so he can protect the wife of the warlord he himself serves, who is also trapped. But Yen's Guan is no superhero, the directors told The Associated Press on the sidelines the movie's Hong Kong premiere late Friday.

"Our perspective is a more humanized perspective. Previous adaptations focused on historical fact and period costume. Our starting point was human nature," said Chong, who co-wrote the script to "Infernal Affairs" with Mak. The 2002 crime thriller, co-directed by Mak and Andrew Lau, was later remade as "The Departed" by Martin Scorsese and earned the American his first best director Oscar.

Yen's portrayal "made Guan Yu into an ordinary person," Chong said. "The Guan Yu we have seen in the past is more like a god. He is so holy he can't even touch a woman. Our story was constructed out of the daily encounters of Guan Yu."

Yen, who also was action choreographer on the movie, said Guan is such a storied character that he is happy he could carry the role at all.

"The fact that I am able to portray Guan Yunchang is a breakthrough," Yen told the AP, using one of Guan's alternative names. "If you portray him this way, people complain. If you portray him that way, people also complain. It is very hard to meet people's expectations."

But Chong said he was impressed with the improvement in Yen's acting skills.

"I think this is the best performance out of all of his movies," the co-director said during the news conference for the premiere.

Besides Yen, now one of Asia's most bankable actions stars after the recent success of his kung fu biopics "Ip Man" and Ip Man 2," ''The Lost Bladesman" was also boosted by the casting of veteran Chinese actor Jiang Wen, who played Cao. Jiang's stardom has risen in recent years with his successful directing efforts, most recently the political satire "Let the Bullets Fly."

"Everyone know what a good actor he is. To be mentioned in the same breath as him, to be able to act with him is a big step forward for me," Yen said.

"His acting skills are impeccable. After working with him this time I came away with the impression that he is almost a national treasure," Mak said.

[SimonM]

When I discovered that Donnie Yen, one of my very favourite kung fu movie stars had done a movie detailing my very favourite sequence in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms I thought it would be a sure-fire win.

I was painfully mistaken.

The subtitles on my copy were so absolutely horrible that it was easier to understand the film, even with my fractured mandarin, to just shut them off. The fight sequences, though too infrequent in this slowly-paced period piece, were very well done, credit where credit is due, but while some reviewers thought that the "closed-door" fight was innovative I saw it as nothing more than a blatant rip-off; a cost cutting measure that allowed the crew to cut an entire fight sequence.

The inscrutable attempt at an unrequited love story between Guanyu and Liu Bei's concubine and the downright silly twist ending were stupid beyond words and veered precipitously from the text in fundamental ways.

The framing device, using Cao Cao's grief over Guanyu's eventual death was actually very well done. It's just too bad that it framed a story that was ultimately so poorly told.

The Lost Bladesman is sadly a flawed film. Completionists of either Donnie Yen's oeuvre or of Three Kingdoms stories might want to watch it but don't get your hopes up too high.

[GeneChing]

The Lost Bladesman: Film Review
3:28 PM 6/1/2011 by Maggie Lee

The Bottom Line: Unadventurous, self-conflicted costume martial arts film that does not put its valuable stars to proper use.
Venue: Udine Far East Film Festival
Cast: Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen, Sun Li, Edison Bo-Chieh Wang, Alex Fong
Directors-screenwriters: Felix Chong, Alan Mak

Felix Chong and Alan Mak wrote and directed the martial arts film, starring Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen.

UDINE, Italy – The martial prowess of Donnie Yen and acting chops of Jiang Wen are squandered inThe Lost Bladesman, a pseudo-historical blockbuster that’s wordy and ponderous, interspersed with (rather than driven by) sturdy but never mind-blowing action sequences. The subject is Guan Yu (a.k.a. Guan Yunchang), a fictional hero from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, who is widely enshrined in temples and deified by police and triads alike for chivalry and manhood. Directing-writing duo Alan Mak and Felix Chong (Overheard, Infernal Affairs) can neither decide whether to humanize or glorify Guan, nor make up their minds about shooting an action-entertainment or political drama.

Though the film falls way short of epic status, Yen’s bankability as a premier action star will help The Lost Bladesman find its way into overseas genre ancillary markets. In China, it reportedly made around $24.4 million in just under a month.

Set in 198 A.D., when the Eastern Han Dynasty has collapsed into civil war, and the young Emperor (Edison Wang) is a puppet of prime minster and generalissimo Cao Cao (Jiang), the film singles out two famous chapters from Guan (Yen)’s many heroic adventures: his hostage period in Cao Cao’s camp in Baima City, and his dangerous mission to escort Qilan (Sun Li), concubine of his lord Liu Bei (Alex Fong, completely under-used) to safety.

Guan’s captivity occupies the film’s dawdling, 45-minute first act, during which Cao (the film’s narrator) ponders how to turn Guan into his “chess piece.” This ranges from boring him with propaganda on benevolent dictatorship to drugging his food with aphrodisiac so he would cross the line with Qilan, whom he had an adolescent crush on. The historical context of Guan’s and Liu’s strategic situation vis a vis Cao’s and the Emperor’s is blurrily related, with interpolations of names and places that overwhelm rather than clarify. The love plot, with its potential for challenging taboo, has as much spark as damp firewood.

The second act finally breaks free from the sluggish, enclosed atmosphere and allows a number of action setpieces to be designed around various eye-catching natural locations. Guan’s journey, known in Chinese folklore as “Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles” involves him crossing five barriers and defeating six generals sent by Cao’s aides to halt him. A fight on horseback along a circular alley impresses with moves devised to fit around the tight, curving space, caught by a nimble, swiveling camera. But the narrative scurries and scrambles, never achieving a headlong thrust in pacing.

One expects physically demanding knockouts and elaborate moves from Yen but there’s not enough innovation or exertion in his martial arts choreography. As the bearded hero known for his towering build, Yen’s petite, albeit sinewy figure diminishes his stature. Yen is also hampered by the need to brandish Guan’s signature “guan dao” — an unwieldly blade on a stick that circumscribes fancier moves utilizing his superb boxing skills.

Mak and Chong, whose expertise lies in setting taut psychological dramas in urban, westernized Hong Kong, are out of their depth when projecting a historical vision steeped in ancient folklore. A move to modernize the protagonists by besetting them with philosophical doubts about their raison d’etre and values of their time is not developed in line with their course of action, which remains orthodox. Jiang bestows gravitas to his role but his scope of acting is limited to delivering turgid political treatises.

Venue: Udine Far East Film Festival
Sales: Easternlight Films
Production companies: Star Union Skykee (Beijing) Film & Media Advertising Co Ltd, Shanghai Film Group, Anhui Media Industry Group presents a Pop Movies production
Cast: Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen, Sun Li, Edison Bo-Chieh Wang, Alex Fong
Directors-screenwriters: Felix Chong, Alan Mak
Produced by: Li Junhao, Xia Huajun, Anson Leung, Zheng Gaofeng
Producers: Liang Ting, Wang Tianyun
Executive producers: Liang Ting, Ren Zhonglun, Li Jinhua
Director of photography: Chan Chi-ying
Art director: Liu Jingping
Music: Henry Lai
Costume designer: Zhang Ling
Editor: Kong Chi-leung
No rating, 107 minutes

I still need to see this. I've suffered through all of Jackie's & Jet's flops. I'll suffer through most of Donnie's (although I'll probably draw the line at All's Well, Ends Well 2011).

[SimonM]

I still need to see this. I've suffered through all of Jackie's & Jet's flops. I'll suffer through most of Donnie's (although I'll probably draw the line at All's Well, Ends Well 2011).

Warning you Gene the third act is basically made of fail. But, yeah, you're a completionist so watch it in that context.

[GeneChing]

...given your reviews, my expectation wasn't too high. Thanks for that. If I hadn't been warned by y'all, I might have been more disappointed.

It's another gorgeous ancient Chinese warfare flick - great sets and costumes, massive siege battles. Betty Sun (Fearless, Painted Skin) was the concubine. She has impossible huge eyes, like an anime character, and got a little annoying. Zhang Wen plays Cao Cao, and comes off looking strangely like Zhang Fengyi's characterization for Red Cliff. Yen was too gaunt for Guan Yu, IMO, although I did like the notion of how Guan gets his red face (smearing blood over it). Got to hand it to Donnie tho - he's playing all the great martial heroes, one by one. From Chen Zhen, to the god of war, and on to Monkey King. About halfway through, there's an awesome action sequence that's classic Donnie - the one in the narrow corridor. There's several more good fights to follow as he plows through the 6 generals. I always enjoy seeing good Kwan Dao work. I love that weapon.

If you're a fan of Donnie, the central action portions are really solid, but the beginning is slow and it ends with a thud so either fast forward, or enjoy a few brewskis for those parts. Of course, if you know RotTK, which any sinophile knows like Harry Potter, it's not going to surprise you significantly with plot twists. Seeing this has inspired me to read RotTK again.

[GeneChing]

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