It says "moderate violence" but it's still PG-13. This movie was so pretty, I almost forgot that every character in it is an asshole. Some asshole goddess named Manshen (Hong Chen) tells a starving orphan that she can grow up to have incredible beauty, riches, and fame but the catch is that she can never have true love. Since that means nothing to a seven-year-old, the girl agrees and becomes Princess Qingcheng (Cecilia Cheung), most favored royal concubine. So favored, in fact, that the asshole Lord of the North, Wuhuan (Nicholas Tse) deposes the asshole Emperor (Qian Chang) and sends his fastest assassin, Snow Wolf (Ye Liu) to kill the Emperor's favorite asshole general, Guangming, the Lord of the Crimson Armor (Hiroyuki Sanada). Snow Wolf succeeds in grievously wounding Guangming, preventing him from coming to the Emperor's rescue. Guangming tells his slave Kunlun (Dong-gun Jang) to put on the armor and save the Emperor. As long as he doesn't raise the face mask or speak, no one will know the difference.
This is a great plan, except that Kunlun kills the Emperor for attacking Qingcheng and rides away with her. He is pursued by Wuhuan to a cliff face, where he is told that if he jumps off, Qingcheng will be spared. He does so, and thus, the love triangle is set. Princess loves the General because she thinks he rescued her, General loves the Princess because who wouldn't, and the slave loves the Princess because she's gorgeous.
There's a lot of talk about honor and love and everyone has a destiny but who cares because, holy shit, costumes. Seriously, this movie is ob.sessed. with flowers and feathers. Everybody is either wearing the inside of a queen-sized duvet or a parade float's worth of roses. It's amazing. The CGI is kinda dodgy and the ending opens a huge paradox that made my brain hurt, but it's not bad overall. I'll probably end up buying it just for the costumes. Just look at this.
How am I going to pass that up?
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