IMDb > Tau ming chong (2007)

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Overview

User Rating:
7.2/10   6,352 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?

Down 8% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.

Directors:

Peter Chan
Wai Man Yip (co-director)

Writers:

Tin Nam Chun (screenplay)
Junli Guo (screenplay)
more

Contact:

View company contact information for Warlords on IMDbPro.

Release Date:

12 December 2007 (China) more

Genre:

Action | Drama | History | War more

Plot:

It's a heroic tale of three blood brothers and their struggle in the midst of war and political upheaval... more | full synopsis

Awards:

15 wins & 10 nominations more

User Comments:

Peter Chan's anti-war effort & a tweak with the HK gangster genre more (42 total)


Cast

  (Credited cast)

Jet Li ... General Pang Qingyun (as Lianjie Li)
Andy Lau ... Zhao Er-Hu (as Dehua Liu)
Takeshi Kaneshiro ... Zhang Wen-Xiang (as Wu Jincheng)
Jinglei Xu ... Lian
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Bao-ming Gu
Xiaodong Guo
Zhaoqi Shi ... He Kui
Dong Dong Wang ... Zhang Shan
Kuirong Wang ... Jiang Da Ren
Yachao Wang ... Young soldier
Zongwan Wei ... Cheng Da Ren
Bo Zhou
more
Create a character page for: ?

Additional Details

Also Known As:

Ci ma (Hong Kong: Cantonese title) (working title)
The Warlords (International: English title)
Tou ming zhuang (China: Mandarin title)
Warlords (USA) (new title)
more

MPAA:

Rated R for sequences of strong violence.

Runtime:

126 min | 110 min (international version)

Country:

China | Hong Kong

Language:

Mandarin

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1 more

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Filming Locations:

Beijing, China more


Fun Stuff

Trivia:

The main character's name was supposed to be that of an actual historical figure called Ma Xinyi, but was changed to Pang Qingyun in order not to reflect badly on the estate of Ma's descendants, who believe that their ancestor was a good man. more

Movie Connections:

References Paths of Glory (1957) more


FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
33 out of 56 people found the following comment useful.
Peter Chan's anti-war effort & a tweak with the HK gangster genre, 21 December 2007
8/10
Author: fundaquayman from Hong Kong

I'm not a fan of Peter Chan's films... didn't like COMRADES, ALMOST A LOVE STORY (1996), thought HE'S A WOMAN, SHE'S A MAN (1994) was OK, but not spectacular. His films are often injected with a little too much calculated sentimentality to me. Yet after watching WARLORDS (2007), I must say this is the first film that made me feel the calculations worked. Peter Chan learned from the mistakes of Zhang Yimou with HERO (2002), HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, and that lame piece of crap CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER (2006), he learned that big production and art direction doesn't mean the audience won't expect a good story and direction to go with a film, he also learned that Andrew Lau's triad-gangster-cop INFERNAL AFFAIRS formula can get old if you keep heading toward a beaten path... furthermore, any film that glorifies gangster camaraderie almost means doom with the Chinese film board.

What Peter Chan did was very clever, he actually found a story that allows Andy Lau's affected style of acting to fit the context of a story - WAR. Lau's acting never convinced me in contemporary story lines, but it worked with WARLORDS. In fact, he used all three of the male leads to their type-casted best - Jet Li reprises the hero who sees the greater good but has to accept the fact - that nothing comes without a price, while Takeshi assumes, again, the role of a passive and reluctant hero caught in a crossfire. All the special effects come from the same software you see in big budget films whether it is South Korea, Hollywood, Europe, or Japan, and production value is nothing less than any of the pretty-but-empty period-pieces Zhang Yimou or Chen Kaige tried to fool audiences with... I can see the homage/inspiration from Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW, the original GET CARTER,... there were even moments where I thought I was watching a tribute to John Woo's A BETTER TOMORROW or THE KILLER -- WARLORDS (2007) is Peter Chan's best film to date, and while there is plenty of sentimentality in the key scenes, the context and the flow of the story actually lifted it from what could have been melodrama, to quite compelling performances.

Whatever calculations and formulas Peter Chan used on his previous films that I didn't like, the math worked for WARLORDS (2007)... and what results is some of the best performances I've seen from Jet Li that doesn't start and end with just fight scenes...

What I'm amazed with is how a Chinese period film is also one of the better anti-war movies I've seen in a long while.

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Message Boards

Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Tau ming chong (2007)
Recent Posts (updated daily)User
for people who thought the acting was horribel read on... puffyao
Jet Li SMOKING??? (Picture) jetli42663
US release... MrsJove
VIDEO: PETER CHAN ABOUT 'THE WARLORD' (HONG KONG FILMART) abbot
This movie is NOT so bad Coroze
Masterpiece! jie_wang1977
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