Movies: "The Banquet"

My Dad came back from China recently, and he brought back an armload of Chinese DVDs. One such movie that my family watched was "The Banquet," a recently released film starring none other than the ubiquitous Zhang Ziyi. It's sort of a Chinese kung-fu Hamlet, but, there are some significant differences. For starters, everyone seems to know martial arts, which is certainly handy when trying to assassinate the son of the brother you just murdered.

The period clothing and sets are pretty sumptuous, and there is thankfully less CGI in this film than in other recent Chinese wuxia flicks. Unfortunately, while the acting is okay, the story is a little too weak in comparison to the source material (hard to improve on the Bard) and the ultimate ending feels very contrived indeed. The final nail in the coffin is the lackluster fight choreography - too many cuts mid-move make you wonder if they could get the actors to actually pull off the stuff in the movie. :P

Rating: 6 out of 10