Starring Andy Lau, Jet Li, and Takeshi

The Warlords is set during the Taiping Rebellion when the Qing Dynasty was brought to its knees by a militant demagogue who attracted hundreds of thousands of disgruntled insurgents to his cause, thrusting the nation into chaotic infighting and warlordism. Emerging from a field of corpses, Qing General Pang (Jet Li) is the only member of his troop to survive a fatal battle with enemy forces. Wandering through the impoverished land, he encounters young outlaw Jiang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and ends up joining a gang of bandits led by the brash and brazen Zhao (Andy Lau). Realizing that the only way to survive during such times is to join the fight, Pang, Zhao, and Jiang form their own army and offer their services to the Qing. Bounded by their blood oath, the sworn brothers lay down their lives for victory on the battlefield, but their brotherhood is tested by politics, personal ambition, and rivalry for the hand of Zhao’s wife (Xu Jinglei).

Trailer

Starring:
Jet Li
Andy Lau
Takeshi Kaneshiro

Ratings: 3 out of 5
A very gritty telling of war and human greed. What I disliked was the ending.

Third in the series of Jin Yong’s novel adaptation by Zhang Ji Zhong, it is also known as Demi-Gods, Semi-Devils. An epic story about the lives of 3 young men with different aims in life and how their paths crossed and ended up sworn brothers.

Epic in proportion and scope as the story shifts among the 3 main characters. Plots range from the mundane romance to secret martial arts skills and to politics between the tribes outside of China and the China.

The story of Qiao Feng, the exiled Beggar Sect leader is the most reverting and the most depressing as he deals with the fact that he had killed his lover with his bare hands in a mistakened identity fight, having to bring up her younger sister who is desperately in love with him, and finally, living with the fact that he is not a Han Chinese as he had thought he was but was in reality a Khitan by birth. Thus he as shunned by the Han Chinese people that he had grew up with.

Cast

• Hu Jun as Qiao Feng
• Jimmy Lin as Duan Yu
• Gao Hu as Xu Zhu
• Liu Yi Fei as Wang Yu Yan
• Liu Tao as A Zhu

Links:
Wuxiapedia
Wikipedia

Forum Discussion:
SPCNet


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Rating: 4/5
Fully deserving of the rating due to the epic scope, huge cast, great acting all round. The only bad spot is Jimmy’s constant panda eyes. Qiao Feng has the saddest story of the three and died a hero’s death, unable and unwilling to help his own people conquer his adoptive Han country.

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This is another Jin Yong novel adapted by China’s Zhang Ji Zhong in a follow up of his earlier work on Xiao Ao Jiang Hu.
The title of this series is ????? (She Diao Ying Xiong Zhuan ), aka Brave Archer, Legend of the Condor Heroes.

As with all his much loved novels, various tv adaptations were done on this novel; with Hongkong’s TVB station having produced it twice.

The story’s centered around the 2 sons of 2 sworn brothers residing in the Cow Herders Village late Song period when the kingdom was weakened by corrupt officials who were bribed or intimidated by the surrounding hostile states, namely the Jin Empire. The young boys were separated when young and one (Guo Jing) was accepted into Genghis Khan’s clan, the other (Yang Kang) was adopted by a prince of the Jin Empire.

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