A disciple of the Wu-Tang Clan falls in love with an assassin from a cult lead by conjoined twins. Tragedy ensues and everyone dies.
I really wanted to like this one since it came with a strong recommendation and has positive reviews. But this movie frustrates me.
The first point of frustration is that it's an hour and a half long and very little of importance happens within the first hour and 10 minutes. I've grown accustomed to uneven pacing in wuxia films, but this was a particularly bad offender. There are maybe three fight scenes in that time, with each only last a brief amount. Most of the running time is spent watching boring dialogue, a boring romance, and the conjoined twin cult leader(s) acting weird. There's simultaneously too much happening at once with characters and plot points thrown at you left and right, and nothing happening as the film meanders from scene to scene without much energy or direction.
The second point of frustration is that the action scenes were filmed in this truly awful smeary blurry faux-slow mo. Whenever anything action related happens, the movie becomes physically difficult to watch due to this effect. My understanding is that the technique used is called step-printing, where key frames are intentionally exposed onto proceeding frames to blur them together. The effect is best described as "slow motion but in real time, and it's strobing and ugly". So what minimal fights are in this film are spoiled by this truly awful technique. Considering that fight choreography and flair are both a major hallmark of the genre AND the saving grave of some otherwise unremarkable films, this serves as an extreme disappointment.
I think the concept of the film is good. And I could imagine a world where the first 3/4s of this movie are basically the opening act and the rest of the film is given a different direction. I like the idea that the two main characters' love ends up bringing ruin to both of their "families." The costumes were a notable highlight. And the titular bride uses a whip which was fun (and results in one of the few enjoyable sequences where multiple soldiers get decapitated and dismembered in a row).
I can't give this movie a recommendation. Maybe in the context of the era and the market, this movie served as some kind of response to trends in the wuxia genre. But viewed by an outsider without context, I'm not seeing the merit.
