Genre: History

‘The Bravest Escort Group’ was one of those films you start watching while all the while thinking that it must have either been edited down from a much longer version or part of a series.

‘The Emperor and the Assassin’ is a minor masterpiece and comes highly recommended, though it should be stated that this is not a film for everyone.

Wisely building to the big combat scenes, ‘The Front Line’ lets us, the viewer, get to know the characters and watch them transform through their actions and what they must go through to survive.

Chang Cheh’s ‘The Heroic Ones’ is an ambitious and sumptuous martial arts epic that set a benchmark for Shaw Brothers at its time of release.

Eschewing any flashiness for a more old school and care given to character and pacing approach, Chong and Mak craft a beautifully shot and finely acted period piece.

It’s just disappointing that the obvious craft at work by the experienced crew on ‘The Revenger’ never quite translates into a solid, coherent whole.

Eschewing, for the most part, extensive wirework and CGI enhancement, ‘The Swordsman’ delivers clean, crisp, albeit brutal swordfight action.

‘The Valiant Ones’ really does deliver on its promise of a group of gifted fighters going after a never-ending swarm of rampaging pirates and fighting them all to the death.

Despite a solid start and the production values to do events justice, ‘The War of Loong’ just misses out on being overly memorable.

This is not a flashy costume drama or a CGI enhanced flight of fancy but rather a gritty, grimy and quite often, an in your face epic.

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

‘The War of The Arrows’ is the kind of confident blockbuster that swaggers onto the screen, stays for a noisy, incident-filled two hours and gallops off into the night.