Dallas Film Now.

Come for the incredible action sequences, stay for the gobsmacking action sequences. 

Giving Yuen Woo-ping the directorial reins for a movie that is set primarily in a desert is like handing a blank canvas to a great painter.  

Working from a screenplay devised by multiple writers, Yuen, the director and/or choreographer of countless action classics, including In the Line of Duty IV, Once Upon a Time in China, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, masterminds a stunning variety of action sequences utilizing an incredible array of weapons, from fists to legs to heads (when they’re not blowing up or getting split) to knives to spears to poles to flails to horses. 

Yes, horses, and I hope that much of the visual effects budget was spent on creating some of the life-endangering horse falls that occur with distressing regularity. (And, yes, I hope that the humans were protected from serious injury, too.) 

Speaking of horses, they feature in a great, extended early sequence, redefining the Western as a true Western as horses gallop across the desert plains and their riders engage in fierce horse-to-horse combat, with the riders jumping from horse to horse and from ground to horse and from stage coach to horse and horse to stage coach and from one type of bladed weapon to another. 

Then they get to where they’re going, and we have some peaceful village life, so that everyone, including the audience, can catch their breaths. 

Adapted from a comic book series, the narrative follows Dao Ma (Wu Jing), known as China’s second-most wanted fugitive, who pays the bills by collecting bounties. He is pressed into service by his mentor and protector, the chief of a clan where Dao Ma has been hiding out, to take China’s #1 fugitive — the masked leader of the Flower Rebellion against wicked warlords — across the desert to Chang’an. 

Dao Ma is also entrusted with the company of the clan leader’s daughter, Ayuya (Chen Lijun), who has just broken her engagement with Nicolas Tse, an evil, ambitious fellow. 

There is much more to the plot, and many more characters who are introduced throughout the film, usually with titles that flash on screen to identify them. To be honest, though, I was completely swept up with the rhythm of the action sequences, which only slow down to introduce new characters, and thus I tended to ignore their specific identities and instead glory in what was transpiring on screen. 

A good thing to keep in mind is that, no matter how big a fan you might be of these type of grand action adventures, thus concluding that you’ve seen it all, Director Yuen Woo-ping has actually made many of these type of adventures, and so he and his team continually invent new ways to develop the battle scenes so that they are spellbinding to behold. 

After a short while, I threw away the last of my preconceptions and sat back to enjoy the ride, which is a marvel to watch unfold. Truly, there are scenes I’ve never seen before in a motion picture — though perhaps in a fever dream or two. And this is all packed into a running time that barely exceeds 120 minutes, which is a marvel in itself.  

The film opens today in select area theaters. (See list below.) For more information about the film, visit the official site. 

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Lake Highlands — Dallas, TX

Cinemark Dallas — Dallas, TX

AMC Grapevine Mills 24 — Grapevine, TX
AMC DINE-IN Stonebriar 24 — Frisco, TX
Cinemark West Plano — Plano, TX
Cinemark Legacy — Plano, TX
Cinemark Allen 16 — Allen, TX