The Warlords Blu-ray delivers great video and audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
During the Taiping Rebellion of the 1860s, General Pang barely survives a brutal massacre of his fellow soldiers by playing dead, and then joins a band of bandits led by Er Hu and Wu Yang. After fighting back attackers from a helpless village, the three men take an oath to become “blood brothers,” but things quickly turn sour and the three men become embroiled in a web of political deceit, and a love triangle between Pang, Er Hu and a beautiful courtesan.
"War is hell," as Sherman said, but it often makes for a hell of a good film. In battle, the breadth of
human emotion is stretched to extremes; moral decisions have immediate consequences, loyalty is
more than just an idea, and the bond that forms between soldiers—as explored in Band of
Brothers and countless cinematic depictions—is one that's rarely matched in the "civilian" world.
In his historical Chinese war drama, The Warlords, director Peter Chan—best known for
romances like Perhaps Love—taps into these universal themes with mixed results. A kind of
anti-war movie that nonetheless can't help glorifying battlefield heroics—and there are some seriously
badass heroics here—The Warlords is a male-bonding movie cloaked as a martial arts epic.
And it's certainly cloaked well, as the brutal fighting has a tendency to overshadow the interactions
between the characters. Or, to put it more simply, The Warlords gets an "A" for action, but
only a "B-" for the resonance of its storytelling.
The Warlords
Set during the Taiping Rebellion of the 1860s, The Warlords opens with the loyalist Qing
army suffering a staggering defeat. General Qingyun (Jet Li) rises from a battlefield of corpses, the
sole survivor, but he's no hero. After spending a night with Liansheng (Xu Jinglei), a peasant
woman who nurses him back to health, he confesses that he's a coward, that he played dead to
avoid the slaughter. Now a deserter, Qingyun wanders into a village of bandits, led by Er-hu (Andy
Lau) and Wu-yang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), who are about to get the Imperial smackdown for stealing
supplies. Qingyung convinces them to join the Qing army—trading certain death for only probable
death—and the three men swear a blood oath to stick by one another through thick and thin.
(Forget that slice open your thumbs and mash 'em together blood brothers nonsense;
here, the blood oath involves each man stabbing a random prisoner to death. Murder. Now
that's a tie that binds.) The Imperial War Council reluctantly reestablishes Qingyung as a
commander, gives him a paltry army—supplemented by Er-hu and Wu-yang's bandits—and orders
him to attack a series of cities that are successively more fortified and difficult to crack. The
brotherhood of the three warlords starts to dissolve when the moral complications of war prove too
caustic for their alliance. Of course, it doesn't help that Qingyung is having an affair with
Liansheng, who turns out to be Er-hu's wife. Ouch.
No less than eight screenwriters are credited for the script—never a good sign—and The
Warlords does have a certain lack of thematic cohesion that suggests a few too many cooks in
the cinematic kitchen. The internal drama of blood and brotherhood that plays out between the
three men is presumably the heart of the story, but there's not much meat to it and the
characters' motivations can be summed up without much effort. Qingyung is driven by his former
cowardice to become powerful, and he'll do whatever it takes to succeed—even killing 5,000
unarmed prisoners. Er-hu, who we think is a hardened bandit, is more of a softie than he seems,
and balks at Qingyung's coldhearted tactics. And Wu-yang, much like Kaneshiro's character in
Red Cliff, simply waits to see which way the wind will blow, so to speak, before he makes a
decision. Having Qingyung in an affair with Er-hu's wife is a purely soap opera-ish touch, a
machination that leads to a late-in-the-game plot turn that seems almost unnecessary. (We also
never really get to know Liansheng. She spends most of the movie staring vacantly into the
distance, a tear running down her cheek.) Still, the last act does pick up with the introduction of
political intrigue. When we see members of the war council playing go—a kind of
military strategy game—we realize that the three warlords are really just pieces on someone else's
board.
The story may not be as affecting as Peter Chan envisioned—reportedly, he was inspired to make a
film about male bonding after seeing John Woo's A Better Tomorrow—but the director
handles the battle scenes with visual dynamism. Better known for witty comedies, sensuous love
stories, and his entry in the Three…Extremes horror anthology, Chan is surprisingly adept
at staging large-scale action. While shaky-cam and tight framing occasionally obscure the fight
choreography, Chan often pulls back wide to let us observe the more intricately staged events.
There's one scene where Jet Li impales a guy on a pike and throws him onto a barrel of a cannon,
which backfires, taking out several more soldiers. Then, Li turns to face six spearmen and cuts off
all of their legs with a single swipe of his weapon. It's such an impressive moment of out-and-out
violence that I had to rewind and watch it two more times. Chan really plays up the brutality of war
—he shows arterial blood spurting galore and, post-battle, lets the camera linger on mutilated
bodies—but the effect is less oh my gosh, look how horrible war is and more holy crap,
Jet Li is a badass. And he is. Kaneshiro and Lau get their moments to both convincingly emote
and hack limbs awesomely, but Li gives a truly terrific performance, conflicted and enraged. Though
there's been a surfeit of Chinese war epics lately, Li's presence alone is enough to make The
Warlords worth watching.
Note: This version of the film has the 113-minute length of the U.S. theatrical release, which has
been pared down from the original 127-minute runtime. Many of the battle sequences have been
trimmed slightly, and some minor subplots removed, so those looking for the complete, unaltered
film may want to consider importing the Region-A Hong Kong release by Megastar.
Blu-ray.com staff writer Dr. Svet Atanasov previously reviewed the Region-A Hong Kong release of The
Warlords by Megastar, and if you check out the screenshots in his review, you'll notice the
transfer
differs quite a bit from the one offered here by Magnolia Home Entertainment. The biggest change is
that contrast has been seriously pushed for the U.S. release, often resulting in crushing blacks and hot
highlights. There's also more of a distinct color cast to the image, sometimes yellow and sometime
greenish. Without confirmation from the director/cinematographer, it's hard to tell which look is more
"right," but both have their merits. If a bit stylized and overheated compared to the Hong Kong
release, this version is still very impressive. The film has a gritty, grimy, almost Saving Private
Ryan-type aesthetic, with stark gradation, selectively desaturated neutral colors, and vivid blood
reds. Skin tones, though, do look a little too yellowed/bronzed in this release. Clarity is exceptional
throughout, defining skin and clothing texture, resolving the intricacies of armor and weaponry, and
detailing the mixture of mud and blood caked on soldiers' faces. Grain varies, purposefully intensifying
during battle scenes and seeming finer elsewhere, but it's always present, giving the image a warm,
filmic texture. The print is clean, and compression-related distractions are entirely absent.
While the MegaStar release contained a lossless Mandarin 7.1 surround track, this U.S. version offers
DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes in both Mandarin and English. Do note that the disc defaults to the
unsurprisingly awful English dub, so you might want to have a fiddle in the set-up menu before
starting the film. (Unless, that is, you're keen on hearing an Australian accent issue inexplicably forth
from Andy Lau's mouth, which is, I'll admit, pretty funny for about ten minutes.) Despite being pared
down from 7.1 to 5.1 channels, this is a strong mix, with a sweeping dynamic range and lots of
engaging surround channel usage. The battle scenes, as you'd hope and expect, are sonically hectic,
putting you right in the middle of the action. Swords clash and clang all around, gunfire cracks and
arrows zip through the rears, and cannons explode with room-rattling LFE output. If you turn this one
up, your subwoofer will definitely get a workout, both from the artillery and the propulsive, drum-
heavy score. Some forum members have commented on changes in the soundtrack between the
MegaStar and Magnolia releases, but I've not yet been able to watch the MegaStar version to compare.
For most viewers, this will likely be a sounds perfectly fine since you don't really know what you're
missing scenario. Dialogue is always easy to understand, and the subtitles appear at the bottom of
the frame in easy-to-read white lettering.
Making of The Warlords Featurettes (SD, 38:46)
There are fifteen featurettes in all, covering every aspect of the film's production, from the casting
and themes to the battle scenes, gore effects, and horse training.
The Warlords 117 Days: A Production Journal (SD, 35:23)
More of a "breaking of" documentary than a "making of" featurette, this video production journal
chronicles the extreme challenges the production crew faced trying to complete The
Warlords. Includes loads of on-set footage and interviews with the director and
actors.
The Warlords: Behind the Scenes Special (SD, 17:46)
Another "making of" production documentary, with lots of clips from the film.
Deleted and Extended Scenes (SD, 27:16)
A wide variety of excised scenes and extended beats.
HDNet: A Look at The Warlords (1080i, 4:38)
A typical HDNet promo, featuring an interview with director Peter Chan.
International Trailer (SD, 3:40)
Also From Magnolia Home Entertainment Blu-ray (1080p, 8:28)
Includes trailers for Survival of the Dead, District 13: Ultimatum, Mother,
and Red Cliff, along with a promo for HDNet.
While the themes of brotherhood and the conflict between the three warlords don't come through as
clearly as I suspect director Peter Chan had intended, The Warlords is a solid entry into the
Chinese historical martial arts epic canon. Jet Li fans should definitely take note, as not only does he
kick ass with his usual deftness, but he also gives one of his better acting performances in recent
memory. There are some fairly significant differences between Magnolia's U.S. version and MegaStar's
Hong Kong release—a shortened running time, a transfer with pushed contrast, 5.1 instead of 7.1
audio—so some viewers may want to import the Region-A Megastar disc. For most, though,
this Magnolia release of The Warlords will more than suffice; it looks great—if a bit different—
sounds wonderful, and comes with several substantial bonus features. Recommended.
Magnolia Home Entertainment has announced the epic war movie The Warlords (Tau ming chong) for release on Blu-ray on June 29. This 2007 Hong Kong production, despite its production budget and cast (starring Jet Li, Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro) only saw a very ...
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