In a bit of vacation marathon Hong Kong cinema viewing, I watched Tsui Hark’s SEVEN SWORDS (2005), Peter Chan’s THE WARLORDS (2007) and Chang Cheh’s BLOOD BROTHERS (1973), the film that inspired WARLORDS. The first two were the first “new” HK films I’ve seen in a few years. (I think PERHAPS LOVE was the last “new” HK film I’ve seen. And, before that, SO CLOSE. I just haven’t had time, what with the Shaw Bros. library, the anime, and the J-pop.) It would be too long a post to include SEVEN SWORDS here. I may post something here later or in another thread.

THE WARLORDS is quite an amazing film. It’s a real epic and it reminded me of EL CID in the way the emotional conflicts are foregrounded in scenes involving hundreds of extras. It’s really about the decisions one makes when one is in command and the impact those decisions have on your friends. Jet Li plays a soldier-turned-general during a period of bloody civil war who ultimately alienates the two “brothers” who bonded with him early in the struggle and helped him get where he’s gotten. He makes decisions that are horrifying, but he’s not an unsympathetic character. He has reasons for what he does and he genuinely believes that the end justifies the means. But his two blood brothers, played by Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro, eventually, at different stages along the way, reach positions where they cannot forgive Pang (Jet).

Just watching these three interact is quite an experience. I don’t think I’ve ever seen either of these actors give such rich performances and play such well-etched characters. Jet Li, in particular, makes you feel what he’s feeling, as difficult as it may be to empathize with some of his brutal decisions. It all shows what you can do when you give a good director a big budget and enough time to make a real movie. Besides, Jet and Andy have aged enough to develop some welcome seasoning. Always a good thing for a male star.

So I went back and watched BLOOD BROTHERS again right afterwards. It’s a very different movie, with different styles of acting and different aims. It is, of course, more of a martial arts movie than THE WARLORDS, but it’s also more of a love story. The love triangle is played down considerably in WARLORDS, but it’s at the heart of BLOOD BROTHERS, which gives many more scenes to the woman, Mi Lan, who is married to one of the brothers but falls in love with another (the general). She has many more scenes in BLOOD BROTHERS, where she’s played by Ching Li. (In the remake she is played by Xu Jinglei, who is not allowed to make much of an impact.) Both BLOOD BROTHERS and WARLORDS are told from the point-of-view of “3rd Brother,” played by David Chiang in the original and Takeshi Kaneshiro in the remake. However, WARLORDS is more about getting inside Pang’s head, whereas BLOOD BROTHERS keeps Ma (Ti Lung), the general, at a distance and takes us more inside 3rd Brother’s head. 2nd Brother is more of an oaf (Chen Kuan Tai) in BLOOD BROTHERS, while more of a conscientious hero (Andy Lau) in WARLORDS, where he constantly confronts the general (“Big Brother”) and ultimately disavows him, something the character doesn’t ever do in BLOOD BROTHERS.

WARLORDS spends a lot more time on the political context and the machinations of a trio of entrenched old lords, who manipulate the various factions and armies from behind the scenes. We don’t see any of this in BLOOD BROTHERS. WARLORDS establishes a specific time period, 1865-1870, while BLOOD BROTHERS doesn’t. WARLORDS has rifles in it, the only concession to its period, while otherwise looking like it could be taking place in the 1600s, which looks to be the time period of BLOOD BROTHERS, although a reference is made in it to the Taiping rebellion, which is the backdrop for WARLORDS as well.

BLOOD BROTHERS is a more beautiful film, more pure entertainment than WARLORDS, and one with more depth than the typical Chang Cheh film. On the other hand, WARLORDS is more demanding, more challenging, and it deals more explicitly with the implications of the characters’ choices. It's meant to be messy and overwhelming, not "entertaining." The massacre of captured soldiers at Suzhou is a scene in WARLORDS with far greater dramatic power than anything in BLOOD BROTHERS. As is the scene where the blood brothers argue over the fate of two adolescent boys in their army, kids they’ve known since childhood, who’ve been caught raping girls in the city they’re pillaging. It’s a heart-wrenching scene, particularly because we can see the varying sides of the issue. And so can 2nd Brother, which makes his character so crucial. WARLORDS also has an epic battle scene that can easily hold its own with any Hollywood golden age counterpart.

(Also, I could swear they shot WARLORDS on some of the same old Shaw Bros. sets that BLOOD BROTHERS was filmed on. But I didn't see anything in the Making of segments about that.)

Ultimately, I wonder what THE WARLORDS is saying about China and the way people in power there have always manipulated the populace and consigned huge numbers to displacement, disruption, and wholesale death and then swept it under the rug of history, while the heroic opposition turns up only in song, legend, and kung fu movies (made in Hong Kong!). I wonder if someone out there has studied this issue in all these new historical dramas from China/Hong Kong. What do they say about China?

I watched the bonus disc that came with THE WARLORDS. There’s quite a lot of stuff, including over an hour of “Making of” segments that are subtitled, and over an hour of other things that aren’t. I liked the interviews, including a bit where Andy Lau points out that he’s the only star of his generation to have worked with Chang Cheh (in SHANGHAI 13) and how THE WARLORDS came about from a conversation he had with director Peter Chan that revealed how they both thought BLOOD BROTHERS was Chang’s best film.

The “Making of” segments don’t tell us where the film was shot. One of the film’s producers, Andre Morgan, turns up in one of the unsubtitled “Production Journal” segments. He speaks English and says one line to an evident backer, “Now you’ve seen where all the money’s going, you feeling better?” Funny. And, yes, it’s the same Andre Morgan of Golden Harvest fame who played the French priest in the Angela Mao classic, WHEN TAEKWONDO STRIKES (1973).

One of the things that interests me about these “Making of” segments on Hong Kong films is the mix of Mandarin and Cantonese used in the interviews and I found myself going back through these segments, and similar ones on the SEVEN SWORDS disc, trying to figure out who’s speaking which.

In one of the interviews Jet Li says about the film, “We wanted to show the world that Chinese culture promotes peace and compassion.” An odd thing to say given the tenuous peace achieved in the film and the brutal methods used to reach it and the way compassion is so easily trumped by harsh punishment. I.e. one character promotes compassion in trying to feed an army of captured soldiers, while the other, the most visible representative of “Chinese culture” in the film, provides a convenient justification for their massacre. The compassionate character invariably loses out.

(Oh, and I have seen other recent HK films besides PERHAPS LOVE and SO CLOSE. CJ7, for one. And I'm saving SEVEN SWORDS and Jackie Chan's THE MYTH for another thread.)

Hey Brian,

I wonder if you're familiar of the historical setting of "The Warlords" and "Blood Brothers," that is, the Taiping rebellion, ca. 1840-64? Before the advent of modern military technology (read: widespread use of guns) the war claimed somewhere between 20-40 million lives. That's a lot of people being hacked to death--reading some of the primary documents in the Ming-Qing archive in Beijing is truly a gruelling, soul-draining experience if you ever get the chance. Mind you, three other rebellions were occurring roughly at the same time and the 20-40 million mark pertains only to the Taiping casualty count. The late Qing was a bloody time among other things.

China doyen Jonathan Spence's _God's Chinese Son_ covers the rebellion and how a failed examination candidate came to the sudden realisation that he was Jesus' younger brother and led a millenarian Christian sect in a holy war to end all holy wars (not to speak of the Nien Rebellion [shamanistic] and Dungan Revolts [Islamic], which were also marked by unusual religious fervor.) Lots of fascinating books on the subject if you care to take a gander.

The one episode from the war that sticks in my mind since undergrad days is the story of how a group of French officers, employed by Qing court, got their Chinese subordinates to drag a billiard table up a position overlooking Nanking (the Taiping capital) so they could play snooker whilst Imperial forces shelled Taiping positions along the old city walls. "Apocalypse Now" OTT, and I'm surprised Chinese filmmakers don't portray the event more in period films. Issues of nationalism and national victimisation aside, it's one helluva striking scene.

Thanks, Yi Lee, for the book recommendation. I went to Barnes & Noble after work to look for it, but they didn't have it. I'll look elsewhere. In the meantime, I have a book on my shelf called The Great Chinese Revolution 1800-1985, by John King Fairbank, and it has some pages on the Taiping Rebellion, so I'll look through that. But anything more in-depth would be welcome.

I still find it hard to believe that BLOOD BROTHERS was supposed to be set during that same period. Everything in it looks like it could have taken place a thousand years ago.

One of George McDonald Fraser's Flashman novels, FLASHMAN AND THE DRAGON, is set during the Taiping Rebellion, and Fraser's typically fascinating afterword and end notes deal with it in some detail.

Several Western readers of THE DEER AND THE CAULDRON have commented on how that novel reads like a Wuxia version of Flashman (I believe it and the first Flashman novel were published the same year).

Blood Brothers produced the same reaction from me as the majority of the Shaw films. I liked the actors and certainly some of the action scenes but overall didn't really enjoy it.

As a fan of Peter Chan (yeah I even LOVE Perhaps Love) I was really excited for The Warlords, since I love Jet Li and am in love with Takeshi as well.

The thing is that maybe my expectations were a bit higher than they should have been. As always Chan excelled at production and story telling but I don't think he was able to control his two leads well. In Jet it worked since his performance was excellent but Andy only managed to wow me in one scene (the one where he first speaks in front of the government officials). His fake beard also didn't help.
But sadly the real deal breaker here was Takeshi. He looked like a supermodel and no matter how much fake grime one smudges him with, he ended up as being an angel with white teeth shining through. He also overacted (which is unusual) so I could never really get into the film.

All in all I liked The Warlords but I think Peter Chan is a better storyteller of romances, romantic relationships etc.

I looked through the book, The Great Chinese Revolution 1800-1985 and found some paragraphs describing a siege (of Anking) and the surrender of starving rebels and their subsequent slaughter, an incident that may be the basis of the scene of a very similar massacre in WARLORDS. The section in the book quotes the commander-in-chief, Tseng Kuo-fan, as saying, in response to his brother's remorse about the slaughter, "Inasmuch as you are commanding troops, naturally you must take killing rebels as your purpose. Why should you regret killing many men?" I wonder if Jet Li's character was based on Tseng.

Hello,

Two comments.

(To Brian): I recommend you check out the local lending library for Spence's book--nothing beats free. It's probably the best introduction to the subject in terms of it being well-written and having a fairly extensive bibliography. There's a lot of Taiping scholarship out there in English, Chinese, French, and Japanese but a lot of it is quite specialist in nature. It's information packed, but unless you're thoroughly grounded in various theoretical debates around the period, you'll probably miss out on the nuance or put too much credence into the odd overstated point (whether for rhetorical or axe-grinding purposes.) Fairbank was the dean of American China scholars but first and foremost he was a diplomatic historian who specialised in the Maritime Customs Service and, to a lesser extant, the Opium Wars. Just remember that he brings that perspective to the table. Spence, on the other hand, was trained as an archival court historian and approaches the rebellion with a stronger foundation in imperial politics. Besides being the more fluid writer, I think his expertise makes his writing on the topic a little more full if not more intellectually gratifying.

(To Elif): Have you ever seen Takeshi Kaneshiro in person? I have and he's beautiful in an un-earthly sort of way. That is, not of this world. I know it sounds like hyperbole, but he actually kind of glows in person. He's perfect. Flawless. It's like he was created in hi-def whilst the rest of us wee mortals are lo-fi cast offs. He shimmers.

I've also met two other famous screen idols: Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Chen Kun. In real life, however, they look pretty normal. Like they exist on this plane of reality. Takeshi, however, is uncannily and preternaturally beautiful. This gets lost on film. My point, in regards to your comments, is that I'm not sure if he can look like a regular, dirt-smudged mortal. "Supermodel" was the day he woke up ugly and angels shed tears causing monsoons and floods.

I've also met Maggie Cheung and Gong Li, both of whom are better looking knock-outs in person than on film. Gorgeous, throw yourself in front of a moving train stunning in the flesh. Come to think of it, so is Xun Jinglei of the "Warlords" when you meet her. Those three, however, don't hold a candle to Takeshi. It sounds like I have a man-crush but as someone who doesn't hit from that side of the batter's box, as it were, I gotta tell you Takeshi face-to-face looks better than some of the most striking women on the planet. People on set don't notice his over-acting because, well, you're mesmerised and basking in his inhuman glow. It's eerie.

Hello,

This is for those of you who are keeping track of the box score at home...

Ti Lung's character in the "Blood Brothers" is based on Ma Hsin-yi (thank you wikipedia!) who was a contemporary of Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang (thank you Chinese school on Saturdays growing up!) Ma was a fellow arch-mandarin to the duo and part of the movie's dramtic tension is in trying to explain how and why such a highly vaunted imperial official came to be assassinated in such an outrageous way. "Warlords," on the other hand, is shooting for different game.

There's a seminal book on the subject by Philip A. Kuhn called _Rebellion and Its' Enemies in Late Imperial China_ that details the rise of Tseng's Hunanese Army and Li's Anhwei Army. That is, how civil officials achieved greater power in the late Qing when widespread rebellion forced them to form local militias to combat various rebel movements. Men like Tseng, Li, and Ma were arch-mandarins who had achieved considerable acclaim as top examination candidates but really gained the epaulets of high office once they were empowered by the Throne to rally local forces--including secret societies and the like--to battle growing internal discord. If I'm not mistaken, isn't part of "The Warlords'" dramatic tension centered on this point of maintaining loyalty to the imperial cause against that of loyalty to local brothers in arms who aren't part of larger imperial machinations?

And why were things going to seed in the late Qing, you might ask? Imperial coffers were running on empty as pacifying wars in the west (Tibet, Central Asia) and the south (Annam, SE Asia), spanning decades in length, were grinding themselves out. Think "quagmire" and the US fighting both Irag/Afghanistan and Vietnam/Korea at the same time and that's roughly what was going on. Come to think of it, China was also campaigning in Chosun at the time so the Korea analogy is also apt.

Actually, if you're a fan of Chinese films (kung-fu or otherwise), reading up on your basic Chinese history would be a good thing to do to fill in the background or historical context of these stories. People are fighting and dying for a reason and when you're dropped into things in media res as a viewer, you understand better the stakes and motivations of everybody with such knowledge in tow. The visual cue in "Warlords" and "Blood Brothers" that this is a Qing dynasty setting is the queue (or pigtail) that all the men are wearing. Other periods have different visual conventions. Chinese films are just like Western films in this regard. If the characters are wearing horse and armour, it's safe to say the story is probably different than one where the characters are in trenches with rifles capped with bayonets. Basic familiarity with Western civilisation would inform you that Tours is something quite different from the Somme and so on.

"All Quiet on the Western Front" and "Paths of Glory" are fine war films but I would argue that you'd get a lot more out of them if you were cognisant of the Great War or WWI. Likewise, many Chinese films have a lot to say about the times the portray if you come into the theatre with a glimmer of the period in mind.

RE: Takeshi Kaneshiro. What's amazing about him is that he doesn't seem to have aged a day in the years since I first started seeing him in HK films (14 years ago!). As for his performance in WARLORDS, I find his youthful appearance backing up his character's impressionability and hero-worship of the other two, who are more seasoned vets. I liked the contrasts among the three and it played into what they each stood for in the film: Pang (Jet)=country; Zhao (Andy)=family; Jiang (Takeshi)=friendship. And I think it's Takeshi who makes that exact point in one of the Making of segments. All of them are good interview subjects, btw.

Yi Lee, thank you for telling about Takeshi in person (the closest I came to was meeting someone whose wife was in the same class with him in high school and I didn't even meet the said wife-heh). Your eloquence really does his beaty justice though.

My problem with him in The Warlords was not him being good looking. It was that his looks outshine his character (who didn't need to be necessarily ugly but had to look malnourished and dirty in the first half and didn't) Usually he is so good that you don't pay attention to his looks (such as in Fallen Angels, CE or Sleepless Town) while aware of how good they are. And I thought he overacted in some crucial scenes - where he convinces Andy's character not to leave for instance, I swear that his head bobbled in Bollywood style at that scene (for the record I love Bollywood films).



I must disagree with you re:Tony Leung Chiu Wai though. I think his great looks don't transfer to big screen (yeah to me he was even more handsome and charismatic than he is on celluloid)

For the record, Yvonne did a review of THE WARLORDS late last year, linked here:

http://www.bcmagazine.net/hk.bcmagazine.is...3-warlords.html


And an interview with director Peter Chan around the same time:

http://www.bcmagazine.net/hk.bcmagazine.is...6/03-peter.html


Interestingly, Chan wonders if the film will pass the Chinese censors, given its "gray area" emphasis, and that was a thought I had while watching it. (It apparently did.)

Was the film a success in Hong Kong/China?

Will it be released in the U.S. theatrically?

Since it's a coproduction, presumably the censors/powers that be had an early look at, if not hand on, the film.

On the box office:

Peter Chan's period actioner "The Warlords" delivered plenty of action at the B.O. in its opening weekend. In China the film quickly notched up 90 million yuan ($12.2 million), putting it deep into hit territory. The Thursday-to-Sunday weekend total includes $1.22 million of previews from Wednesday.
Released on approximately 1,000 screens, reportedly the widest-ever release in the Middle Kingdom, pic overtook "Casino Royale" to become the sixth-biggest earner of the year -- in just four days.
Pic had little competition. Foreign films are barred from releasing in December and "Warlords" saw off "One Foundation," the local pic that had topped the Chinese chart for the previous two weeks, and "Lost in Beijing" the arthouse title that topped $1.08 million in two weeks. Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" still stands as the biggest Chinese film of the year, with a cume of $17 million, but is nearing the end of its run after a Nov. 1 preem.
In Hong Kong "Warlords" took in HK$8.5 million ($1.11 million) off four days plus previews -- a strong result but not record breaking.
Total was good enough to put pic ahead of "I Am Legend" at $977,000, and "Alvin and the Chipmunks," which gnawed its way to $168,000 and an entry in fourth place.
Hong Kong was one of the few territories where "Warlords" went head to head against "Legend" and the only Asian territory where "Warlords" came out on top -- despite "Legend" star Will Smith's trip to Hong Kong to tubthump the film. http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/5158/53/

Despite Li's presence it doesn't look to have US distribution. Chinatowns are the best places to find films of this type, on DVD (alas).

I'd rather wait it out. Which I honestly don't mind to do since I've already seen this in theatres. The bluray edition is coming soon.