This movie is a lot better than the other reviews might lead you to believe. I'm not sure what the other reviewers expected. If anything the movie suffered because it had greater ambitions than it could possibly live up to, but the overall viewing experience was not conspicuously unpleasant. The choice for General Lu was the biggest flaw of the film. Many problems existed, but none of them crippled the entertainment value of the film. Most of the other problems were easy to ignore.
International cinema fans have been spoiled by the above average quality of the movies that come our way. Hollywood has such a stranglehold on the industry that foreign directors face a much higher artistic standard to become successful here. Because of that so many really magnificent pictures have come out of Asia in the past ten years. To become commercially successful on this side of the Pacific requires nothing less. When a movie like My Kingdom comes along and it is merely entertaining instead of a virtuoso production the criticism leveled against it can be less than fair.
International cinema fans have been spoiled by the above average quality of the movies that come our way. Hollywood has such a stranglehold on the industry that foreign directors face a much higher artistic standard to become successful here. Because of that so many really magnificent pictures have come out of Asia in the past ten years. To become commercially successful on this side of the Pacific requires nothing less. When a movie like My Kingdom comes along and it is merely entertaining instead of a virtuoso production the criticism leveled against it can be less than fair.