I sat pondering after watching this film.

This is supposed to be Jet Li’s best acting performance?

Jet Li provides a dashing departure from his restful image here. He is barely recognizable, scars walking over his excessive facial features, crying from his desperate lungs, drunkenly swinging a sword in a blind direction while an army approaches. But in actuality, we should face the facts; Jet Li’s ultimatum was in his historical and almost instructional film “Fearless”, also trumpeted as his last martial arts epic. The success easily came from the polar mirrors of clarity and devastation. Every unpretentious stance he flashed, every breath he exhaled, the camera was high above torturing him with its burning iris. It acted as a drain, breaking and decaying his fatigued emotions. He eventually sunk like a feather into the aquatic sky and floated under the caring tenacity of the tide and the wind. I thought “Fearless” was a delicate anatomy of the mystical saga of the Mizongyi practitioner Huo Yuan Jia himself. But now, Jet Li has taken a sharp, steep hydroplane into loathing mud in this Chinese anti-war project “The Warlords”. He takes his hands and baptizes them in bloodstained slime, he washes his feet in the rivers of filth, and he takes that righteous and honest image, and crumbles it in his abusive and tyrannical fist. This is the stage for him to show and prove that there are no more spinning kicks, dragon punches, it’s time to just shut up and act.

So this is the standalone question; is Jet Li capable of performing in a film that is devoid of martial arts? He has already embraced this pedagogue for so long, wearing this protective penchant of peace, channeling the Chinese kung-fu into a cosmic chi of hope. In a brief lesson, this same teacher snaps the chalk on the ground and walks away, leaving him with the bare body of a human. Is it possible for Jet Li to talk and cry, walk and stumble, to show us his bald beginnings for the first time? Well, in my direct and brief analysis, it would be no that he can’t. But this is not fair in the least, because this for the most part is really not his fault, albeit that he somehow did win the best actor of the year award for his portrayal of the wicked General Pang. A better question posed would be, is Jet Li capable of performing well in a film that is devoid of a convincing story, a substantial script, competent screenplay, and charismatic characterization? Then of course not, no one can, unless his name is Anthony Wong or Morgan Freeman, which he sadly isn’t.

“The Warlords” is a film that dawn the heavens with greed, and paints the sky with dust. It is pretty much without virtue, it has a base crawling with venomous snakes where no strong man can stand for long. As for myself, my errant eyes also lose patience every minute it lounges on this repulsive plague of villains turned cowards. Jet Li, as the miscreant General Pang, fakes imminent death by burying himself beneath a land of bloody armor and corpses to escape capture. He pushes the heavy body out of the way with his brittle strength; and as if a master was forcefully dragging him with invisible chains, he carries himself into exhaustion. And just like every other unlucky soul in every other unhistorical, realistically tainted fantasy-war film, he stumbles upon a village in the heart of a barren wasteland, and just like every other vile traitor who cheated the grim reaper, he wakes up from his languid nightmare in a stranger’s cottage. He looks around, and a middle-aged, traditional female is attractively seducing a spoon, filling it with soup and sending it down his mouth. And of course, it was love at first scoop, they search into each other’s eyes, and the two lay next to each other deep into the next morning. It seems that ambitious fruit has spoiled and disintegrated to the core right from the start, and it’s still mangling between the sharp fangs of these lecherous spawns. Armed with a 40 million dollar budget, more than ample to satisfy the hunger of the eight exalted writers who were hired to write this great wall of Chinese disaster; well, let’s just say strength does not come in numbers in this case.

General Pang, a heartless and immovable rock at this point, rolls himself out of bed the next morning, and renews his career as a beggar, soliciting food out of leftover bowls. His soldierly attire wears dismally into his trails. Saddened and without heed, he quickly falls into the insidious vision of a cutthroat named Jiang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), a respected midnight marauder who works for the poor, and rebels against the rich. They soon assemble at a rendezvous point, where they await for the commanding and potent leader, Zhao Er- Hu (Andy Lau). The three lick their tongue on a shared knife, and then spit the blood on their battered palms, clutching their weapons, and then lifting them towards loyalty and brotherhood. They lead an extensive group of bandits, setting traps to ambush vulnerable armies and unguarded battalions, ascending into an ovation of slaughter and pillage. All of the aforementioned actually happens overnight, my nerves ache as I already feel that heavy script plummeting like a massive boulder into the abyss of impoverished writing and artificial framework.

In the scaled invasion, Jiang agonizes with resisting effort, wrestling on the ground with the enemy combatant. Another man stands over them, pointing his sword, lingering for the perfect opening to gore into the thief’s throat. His downward strike was suspended in violent inertia, an outside force suddenly clutching the blade, blood trickling down the surface. General Pang manifests like divine interference, his gripping hand halting the sharp razor, his skin ripping apart, saving the hero. The vivid intonations of the orchestral score thunders aloud, carrying the importance of friendship and masculine intimacy. Even Andy Lau’s character, Zhao, observes that endless sky is only miniscule compared to the affection and closeness of fellow warriors. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, trying to erase these stale evangelical lectures from my ears, because after all the preaching done about the concept of brotherly love, this movie is anything but that.

There was a significant absence of connection between General Pang, General Zhao, and comrade Jiang. I don’t think the three even knew each other to put it bluntly, with the exception of being accomplices on horsebacks after riding back from a successful pillage. They might also brood around a dying fire, splitting rations of precious bread and wine, suspicious heads turning back and forth, not knowing the proper topic of conversation. They were merely strangers, masquerading as friends, pretending to be brothers. It’s no wonder when the true betrayal comes stabbing them in their necks, you can see that sparkling knife smiling in the shadows; you’re even thankful that it happened.

The sorrowful relationship between the three actors was inconclusive and lost in this overwhelming challenge. Andy Lau, a reliable actor, and an affective singer, is still heartwarming as ever, giving incredible emotions of pain and anguish mainly from his eyes. However, it’s a sin that such a livid performance was shamed by the ugly clutter that damaged this film. Jet Li kept an engrossing expression on his face, constantly pouting his lips and never changing his monstrous glare. It becomes stale quick, and he nearly ruins the only great scene the movie had to offer, an intense debate on whether to execute soldiers who were caught committing rape. The sentimental director, Peter Chan, misplaced his own logic elsewhere when confronted by this luscious budget. For a director who was confident in crafting perfectly passionate stories such as “Going Home”, “Comrades: A Love Story”, actually came out and made a film that is even more sullen and empty than “The House of Flying Daggers.” I didn’t even know that was possible considering how brilliant of a script-writer he is, or was in this case. The emotions of true turmoil were simply reduced to pathetic, laughable war cries that propelled to nowhere; much to the dismay of Takeshi Kaneshiro, lifting his trophy, a decapitated head in battle, and then screaming like a barbarian. I know he can’t pleased with that type of nonsensical craziness.

But I realized today that “The Warlords” is the penultimate, proficient, harmless film to make. It is so ideal, flaunting with mega-star actors that it is almost impossible to criticize. The story is impeccable, and engulfs you with ancient babble of dynasties and ridiculous wars among angry men who would eat each other alive at the first given opportunity. It is safe, it is innocent, it is meaningless, and it has an immense budget that produces a broken form of “epic” cinematography that will capture your visual appetites immediately. It really is a movie for everyone to watch and digest, and especially for Hollywood. In my kind words, this movie is abominable trash with putrid enema leaking out.

Congratulations Jet Li, you’ve really become an actor now…..