Notable Cast: Adam Cheng, Ekin Cheng, Yu Bo, Vic Chou, Li Chen, Raymond Lam, Wu Chun, Fu Xinbo, Shao Bing
While Ronny Yu’s career has had some twists and turns of
it’s own, from a brief career as a director in China with “Bride With White
Hair” to his horror leap in the US and back to his roots with the epic Jet Li
film “Fearless,” my expectations for his historical (sort of) war epic “Saving
General Yang” was high. He’s always been a dark horse director of sorts and
each of his films tends to be fairly distinct from the others. For his latest,
he harkens back to an old school feeling film with some modern flair and the
results, while perhaps uneven, are entertaining to say the least.
When the kingdom’s peace is threatened by war, General Yang
(Adam Cheng) is assigned to be the backing force for the main army to quell the
mounting tension from a young and vicious villain Yuan (Shao Bing). Little
does he know that there is an ulterior motive behind the attack and Yang is
forced into hiding in the mountains. With no help on the way, his seven sons
decide to take it into their own hands with a handful of soldiers to find their
father and return him to safety…perhaps falling into the trap they set out to
defend.
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| "We come bearing horses. And staffs. And soldiers. And armor. And grimaces." |
Ronny Yu and company
set out to make one hell of an entertaining film with “Saving General Yang” and
they more than succeed. One issue that viewers might stumble into is having
their expectations about what the film is because it’s not a “war epic” in the
modern sense of the term. While the scale of the film does tend to be larger
than most in some aspects, there is most certainly an opening sequence featuring
full blown armies clashing on horses and what not, the film rarely plays out
like “Red Cliff” or other films of that caliber. Instead, “Saving General Yang”
plays out more like an old school Shaw Brothers flick – gimmicks and all. The
combination of seven brothers (whom all have distinct personalities and talents
that come out little by little as the film rolls on) having to trek through
various obstacles and battles simply resonates with something that Chang Cheh
and the Venom Mob might have cooked up in the 70s. The character work, while
gimmicky with the brothers, worked well for me despite the fact that there is a
lot of ground to cover for them. The various ensemble casting sparks with a fun
and occasional heartfelt chemistry that makes the play time fly by and it makes
for a sincerely fun and entertaining watch.
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| ...and then, the grass attacked. |
From there, Ronny Yu does encompass a rather modern and
visual style for the film. The battle sequences might mostly contain some solid
hand-to-hand combat and choreography, but he injects a few other action set
pieces to satiate the spectacle driven modern audience. An initial battle
features a silly, but very awesome looking medieval version of napalm and his
tendency to paint in some darker tones with the film’s violence and visuals
cannot be missed. There is a ridiculously dark and brutal sequence where the
seven sons have to cross the original battle field to only find their comrades’
bodies staked on spears and hung as a sort of macabre grave yard. I knew that
Ronny Yu’s days as a horror director would peek through occasionally.
For what it’s worth, I had a blast with “Saving General
Yang.” It might not be the overtly serious and dramatic “war epic” that the
term has come to mean in recent years, but the Shaw Brothers inspired plot and
slightly gimmicky execution make for a film that I will watch over and over
again. Some might not be able to buy into the cheesiness of the film, but I
felt it only added to the entertainment that Ronny Yu and company deliver.
Written By Matt Reifschneider
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