Director: Daniel Lee

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.

Perhaps if the story were more involving or it contained better action, it might have been more appealing. As it stands though, it’s really only going to serve as a quick fix for hardcore Andy Lau fans.

The action is still impressive, and deserves 4 stars, but the direction, annoying camera work and lack of real plot drag it down into the 3 star category.

‘Dragon Blade’, for the most part is an entertaining ride but sways inconsistently between hard hitting period action and cheesy dramatics.

Even though it is littered with flaws, I feel I can’t give ‘Dragon Squad’ the complete thumbs down as it is one of those films that could easily pass for a guilty pleasure.

The quality increases as the film progresses and the viewer is more invested in the characters, meaning that it stands out as one of the more exciting swordplay films of recent years.

This leans more towards the quick-cut close ups of more recent Hollywood efforts. Most of the fights are also glossed over as short “highlights” rather than letting us see the full action.

‘Three Kingdoms: Resurrection Of The Dragon’ is a mixture of well shot conflict, stirring heroism and flawed drama.

While ‘Time Raiders’ starts with competent special effects it descends to a level of incompetence that makes ‘Sharknado’ look cutting edge.

‘What Price Survival’ is nice to look at on the surface but is ultimately very tedious and the action sequences make for insufficient compensation. All in all, dull and boring.

‘White Vengeance’ – in keeping with the generic expectations of recent years – has big, bruising conflict aplenty and it’s those moments that tend to have the greatest impact.