Warriors of Heaven and Earth (Tian di ying xiong) Reviews

An ambitious film that unsuccessfully tries to mix elements of a movie Western with mystical elements from Buddhist folklore.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

Warriors ransacks enough of the dust-swept battle genre (start with Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, and John Ford) to have no rousing or opulent B-movie personality of its own.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Despite the breathtaking locales, Warriors of Heaven and Earth is impossibly cheesy.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

It's good to look at but plodding, even numbing.

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Impressively filmed but not dramatic enough to justify its length.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

A handsome although dramatically muddled Noodle Western.

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A fitfully rousing but too derivative mishmash of genre tropes.

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Monotonous.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Unfortunately, the two main protagonists, Lieutenant Li and Lai Xi, are too much the strong, silent type to engage us as heroes, or even characters.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Shoots for a heavenly grandeur that it fails to achieve.

Full Review | Original Score: C

Takes all the elements of the classic Westerns, mixes them with Eastern spiritualism, and comes out with a film that is at least noteworthy, if not especially brilliant.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

There are scenes here that will stick in your brain for days.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

It's too busy courting genre cliches to mine anything transcendent, which runs counter to the promise inherent in the title.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

For eyes that have overindulged in the stylized razzle-dazzle of Hero, the grit, dust, and occasional cheese of Warriors of Heaven and Earth come as a corrective slap.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

An enjoyably pulpy story, occasionally slow-moving and pretentious

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

The best case for Warriors ... is its cinematic time travels and its peek into the natural wildness of a long-closed countryside.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Move over Peter Jackson and see battle scenes between human beings!

Full Review | Original Score: B+

Be patient, and you'll get rewarded with a good old-fashioned castle siege that's worth the wait.

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It's well worth seeing just for the embellishments.

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He Ping brings to his tale characters who are more dimensional than the usual symbolic figures of traditional Chinese period epics.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

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