Cast Member: Donnie Yen

It has numerous nods to the Shaw Brothers classics and harks back to those swordplay flicks of yesteryear, making you smile, cry, jump for joy and shout like a banshee, like any good martial arts film should.

‘An Empress And The Warriors’ is enticing enough to divert the attention, but without anything substantial within the duration it is quickly forgotten.

Everything is so over-the-top and forced while desperately trying to drag all of those ensemble hits of yesteryear kicking and screaming into the 21st century. The result is a bizarre mix.

Written by the hugely informative Bey Logan, ‘Ballistic Kiss’ is an interesting premise let down by budget restrictions and time restraints.

‘Big Brother’ is a wasted opportunity. It is enjoyable enough for its duration, but every scene seems like it’s been pinched from the genre book written with Dead Poets’ Society strokes.

Part 2 showed some nicer choreography but was hindered by the MTV-style camera work, which has seemingly infected all action films of the past few years.

Overall it’s a wonderful film, a blockbuster people call it, and maybe it is, but really for us Asian movie fans this is what it’s all about – a hard hitting, hard punching film with a heart of gold and a fist of iron.

If you’re one who only digs more grounded, one-on-one martial arts action then you may want to look away, but fans of wuxia action are in for a treat.

An excellent set of combat sequences strung together with little reason but to get the adrenaline pumping.

The pace of the feature is not as consistent as it needed to be, but Wu Ma makes sure that there is enough reasons to remain interested.

If you are a big Donnie fan, or loved ‘Tiger Cage’ and the ‘In The Line Of Duty’ films, then this will surely be a welcome addition to your collection.

Don’t compare it to Yen and Yip’s ‘SPL’ or ‘Flashpoint’, just sit back and enjoy a good old fashioned comic book blockbuster with heaps of kung fu action.