Yang men nu jiang zhi jun ling ru shan

Let's get this out of the way first of all: LEGENDARY AMAZONS has nothing to do with Amazons at all; instead, it's a fairly straightforward and normal-for-the-genre Chinese historical war film about a legendary band of warrior women who are forced into going to war to battle an invading army. It's colourful stuff for sure, packed with unrealistic but cool-looking costumes and plentiful action; indeed, at least 70% of the film seems to be made up of one fight scene after the next, all aided with wirework and CGI effects that keep characters and weapons flying all over the place.

Here's the unusual bit: LEGENDARY AMAZONS also happens to be one of the cheesiest films I've seen in a while. Chinese historicals are usually po-faced and deadly serious, like with THREE KINGDOMS or BATTLE OF WITS. Not so this film: the script is leaden and the performances so awful and self-conscious that they veer on self-parody. The worst offender is the absolutely diabolical Cecilia Cheung, who takes woodenness to new levels; apparently she's a big actress over in the East, but you wouldn't know it from her scene-chewing here.

Still, despite (or maybe because of) all the unintentional humour, LEGENDARY AMAZONS turns out to be a whole lot of fun. The virtually non-stop action helps, of course, but as a whole the film has a light and vibrant feel that keeps it sweeping merrily along. It's certainly not a classic, and by genre standards it's pretty poor, but is it entertaining? The answer is a resounding 'yes'! It's a riot, and one I look forward to seeing again in the future.