Tonkô

This supposedly historic Chinese-Japanese co-production presents a panoramic speculation into the origin of several thousand ancient scrolls, dating back to the 11th century, found hidden in a cave in the Gobi Desert. How did they get there? According to some imaginative screenwriters they were hidden by a plucky Song Dynasty scholar after all sorts of romantic, picaresque adventures. The film is an ambitious attempt to make a Hollywood-style epic, but what could have been a sweeping historical action-spectacle is spoiled by ham-fisted direction aiming toward the grandeur of David Lean but settling for the pulp of Cecil B. DeMille. Exotic locales, a cast of thousands, and all the colored banners in Asia can't hide the clichés. The press kit actually called attention to the "seamless mixture of Western narrative values and Asian production values", but think about that for a moment: wouldn't it have made more sense the other way around?