Disclaimer: This movie review contains spoiler. Please take note.
Plot: The Guillotines (血滴子) is a Cantonese wuxia film directed by director Andrew Lau. Starring Huang Xiaoming, Shawn Yue, Ethan Juan, Li Yuchun, Jing Boran, Stephy Tang, Li Meng, Pu Bajia, Jimmy Wang Yu and King Shih-Chieh, this film is about a secret elite assassination squad known as the Guillotines that serves the Chinese Emperor to defeat anyone who defies him. One of their missions is to kill Wolf, the main figure and leader of the revolt done by the Han Chinese. Little did they know, that the current Emperor, Emperor Qian Long, plans to dissolve the Guillotines and replaces them with the firearm squad, which uses guns and cannons adopted from the West, and this may be their last ever mission.
Thoughts: Simply put, I was not impressed by this movie. In fact, throughout the movie, the many negative thoughts lingered in my mind. Honestly, I had way too many things to comment about.
First, the movie is about the Guillotines and the fearful weapon that functions as a flying guillotine, which has the ability to be sling around, encloses around the victim's head and lastly, beheads the victim. The opening sequence is definitely fancy, showing how lethal the weapon is. And apparently, according to Wikipedia's synopsis (though I had no recollection of this being mentioned in the film), the Guillotines never failed in their 348 missions. So, what actually went wrong in this film? I mean, these 7 members are highly trained assassins, why not utilise those formidable weapons throughout the course of the film? The only moment we got to truly see the flying guillotines made into good use was during the opening sequence. That's it. I did recall that it's been mentioned that the weapon can't be used during daylight so that may be part of the reason. So, why not made some ambush or stealth actions during the night then? Ridiculous. These people were skilled assassins. 3/4 of the movie seemed to destroy their reputed notoriety.
Second, it's a wuxia film but most of the action scenes were done during the opening sequence and the last major battle only. I suppose this film is more about loyalty, brotherhood as well as the character development and emotional growth of Leng, the leader of the Guillotines, who also happened to be one the two specially picked people (the other was Hai Du) and the Emperor's most trusted people. I had much things to complain about his character. He's too soft, cried incessantly and brooded rather than took any action. All I could remember about Leng was the amount of tears (and snots) he shed throughout the course of the film. It's okay for his character to cry, but not all the time. He's the leader of the top assassins, he should be made of tougher stuff. As he watched the deaths of his comrade, one by one, I would have thought he'd finally cut out the crying and became motivated for revenge. Okay, maybe not revenge, at least become more cool-headed. Tsk.
I ended up more looking forward towards Wolf's scenes and the unfolding of his story. And I was much more emotionally affected by his crying scenes, where you could actually feel a hint of hopelessness and burden of shouldering the promises of peace that he had made to too many people. His character was much more pitiable than the rest of the main cast's characters. It's interesting how they made his character looked messiah-like.
The CGI was passable, though absolutely unrealistic at certain parts. Too unrealistic that I almost burst out laughing at the absurdity in the cinema (which, of course, I didn't, seeing as that everyone were pretty serious). For instance, the part where Hai Du pushed Leng off the cliff in rage, the way Leng fell was too fake, too much like how a rag doll would fall. Next, the opening sequence which showed the function of the flying guillotines were a bit too over the top, showing way too much details on how the flying guillotine actually worked. Additionally, at the last major battle, when the cannon shot over the air and onto the village, the way those cannon shots flew through the air was way too pretty. I would had been immensely impressed weren't it for the fact that those cannon were supposed to destructive. The way they shot through just caused me to unable to take those scenes quite seriously.
In short, the plot is uninteresting, acting performance by the actors and actresses are passable, nothing remarkable but not too bad as well. There were some good points, such as the scenery (absolutely breathtaking) and the score. What this film lacked the most would be kick-ass actions just like the opening sequence. Take out the talking, tears (and snots) and put in more action, this film would have done much better.
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