Warlords

The Warlords, directed by Peter Ho-Sun Chan, who produced The Eye and Three..Extremes, portrays an unrelentingly oppressive world of war. The story is set in China during the Taiping rebellion in the late 1860’s and follow three “Warlords” - two bandits, (the older Er Hu played by Andy Lau and younger Wu Yang played by Takeshi Kaneshiro) and a soldier (General Pang). Jet Li, focused on battle and unrelentingly serious, plays Pang as a pure soldier -; war is his life, victory is his goal, and revenge may be his motivation.

The film opens with a series of slow sumptuous shots that seem to float across a field of slaughtered soldiers. Mist rises from the ground, arrows extend from fallen bodies, blood and dirt mix across uniforms, faces, and extended arms. But one person lives -; Pang rises like a reanimated corpse. He has survived by playing dead beneath the lifeless bodies of his own men. Catching his breath he stumbles out and staggers along a sandy road, through three huge iconic wooden gates, ignored by the other travelers who seem only slightly better off than he. But Pang has the good fortune to collapse in front of a particularly beautiful woman. He awakens in the corner of a sort of abandoned warehouse where Lian (played with intensity and reserve by Xu Jinglei) serves him food as he grieves about the loss. He reveals that his men were betrayed in battle by the Ho army, an ally who withheld support and watched them be slaughtered. His fortune continues to improve when she joins Pang in bed and a narrator (the young Wu Yang) tells us, in Pang’s words, that he had been brought back from the dead -; “by the soup or the girl”.

Wu Yang’s narration permeates the film, assuring us that Pang’s brutal choices are the right ones, adding a touch of mystery as to how it will ultimately play out. Pang proves his mettle to a dangerous group of bandits when he is drawn into a fight with a Wu Yang and survives through martial skill and guile. His fortune seems to take an even better turn when he sees Lian in the village - until he learns that she is Commander Er Hu’s woman. It’s a promising scenario that never gets past longing and implied sex -; there is no intimacy in the world of war that is The Warlords. But there are large-scale killings of soldiers in battle and execution, barren and wasted landscapes, dreams of conquering cities and defeating rivals, betrayal, and murder.

Pang offers the bandits a way to fight the rival soldiers who oppress them -; they can join his army, using the weapons and support that he can obtain through political influence. To prove their blood oath each of them must kill an innocent man. The bandits quickly slay the bound victims but Pang’s reaction is more complex -; but just as deadly.

The plot revolves around an escalating series of killings that the “brothers” commit. The theme of the film is death, which is explored in nearly every scene of their journey. The centerpiece of The Warlords is a masterfully executed battle created by action director Ching Siu-Tung, who worked on Curse of the Golden Flower, House of Flying Daggers, Hero). Pang’s soldiers are supported by a large army lent by the Ching leaders (three old men who barter and discuss Pang’s fate as though they were gods). But the Ching Commander refuses to join the battle -; he will only help as “window dressing”. The battle scenes are well choreographed and intelligently constructed. The Generals control the flow of the conflict, using men like pawns in a strategic deathmatch. The hand-to-hand fighting is realistic and quite bloody - through a series of bold and dangerous maneuvers Pang attempts to influence the hesitant commander, risking his life by doing so.  The battle scenes from the film Braveheart are referenced more than once, including a wonderfully unbelievable moment involving a bloody but firm hand gripping the sharpened edges of a sword.

There are other well made action sequences, though much of the bloodshed occurs off-screen, or in brief montages. The biggest massacre of the film, a pivotal moment in the breaking of the trust between the Warlords, takes place completely off-screen. We see only the devastated faces of the men who are forced to do the killing and the grim resolve of Pang, the man who orders the act. There is also a really good sword fight between Er-hu and a rival leader, and a number of other sacrifices, killings, and hand-to-hand fights.  Pang, Er-hu and Wu Yang are continuously faced with the option/opportunity to kill -; and lose some of their humanity each time they do so. Caught between the rage and loathing of the three men, Lian, the love interest, is ultimately wasted as a character. She is ultimately used only to further the downward arc of the three me.

By the time the army achieves it greatest victory by taking the city of Nanking the brothers are planning each other’s assassination. In true operatic manner the resolving conflicts between the men are constructed through crosscutting, brutal murders, a crescendo of music and sound effects, a death confession, and bitter tears that could mean sorrow or joy.

The cinematography, by Arthur Wong, (The Medallion, Contract Killer, Once upon a time in China), is effective and generally lit in a low-key often gloomy manner, befitting the unsparing and joyless world of the film. There are numerous soaring crane shots that reveal the action, hovering over fields of massacred soldiers, showing the dead being dropped into endless ditches, looking down on castle gates as they are penetrated by Pang’s troops. The music and sound design boldly supports the narrative. When the music dies the dead are shrouded by the unsettling silence of death settling in -; groans, distant birds, the wind whistling through clothes and armor.

The Warriors is a film subsumed by the dehumanizing and numbing effects of total and unrelenting war -; on civilians, soldiers and ultimately it’s viewers.  The story is consciously full of pain and betrayal, locking us in a dark and despairing world. If the filmmakers found a way to give us a little contrast, a few moments of hope and life, it would have been more satisfying. Even a small respite from carnage works wonders some times.

                                    Thomas W. Campbell