When a General his killed, his wife and various female members of his family set off to pill his military shoes. That's as close as I can get in a synopsis with going into vast detail - detail which seems unnecessary when this biggish budget Chinese film is largely combat sequences.If you like large battle scenes, lots of one-on-one wire-fu and the like, you're going to enjoy this. But if you're not familiar with lots of Chinese actresses, you're going to get confused. Assorted members of this military clan are introduced together with little identifying captions about what their swords are called, and then you never know who each one is until they - spoiler! - get killed.There is some dodgy CGI, especially at the start. It gets bloodier as it does on, and it really shouldn't because the CGI blood doesn't convince.I've decided I like Cecilia Cheung.This DVD from Poundland held my attention, but I'm not in a big hurry to see it again.

Not going to spoil it much, but the beginning, was EPIC. Its about sisters (well at least by their names they are sisters) training. There's awesome music in the background and all these fancy kind of filming. (One of them, I can't remember, is pro at archery. The film exaggerates at the beginning her skill, with her shooting bullseye while fighting, and doing a back flip before letting go the arrow and it hits like RIGHT in the middle.) The first 9 minutes is a summary basically and an overview of their lives until now. Then it goes into the 'fancy high speed camera sort of scenes' for 3 minutes. (BEST 3 minutes, in my opinion) It's kind of like Fast and furious 5 where they introduce the members in the 'team'. Anyways, I loved it, especially the beginning (like i've been saying for this whole review)the plot was interesting, and (SPOILER: some of the 'sisters' do die despite their awesome kung-fu skills) but i didn't feel sad, maybe because with so many of the 'main characters' (there are 9 or 10 sisters/main characters) the film can't focus exactly too deeply on one character. I'd recommend you to check this out, (at least from 8 minutes in the movie to around 11 minutes to see that epic shoot- which is quite cheesy) but it is one of those action/fighting movies so if your interested you should watch it :)

The Legendary Amazons looks great on paper, produced and funded by Asian superstar Jackie Chan, aided by a huge budget to burn, a quality cast list of Richie Ren, Cecilia Cheung, the return of much missed Kathy Chow and old school veteran Cheng Pei-Pei and directed by a veteran in the HK film industry in Frankie Chan. So what exactly went wrong? The answer is everything. From the lame and weak script, cheesy acting, extremely poor directing and execution, The Legendary Amazons promises a lot, but delivers absolutely nothing. When you have one of the best actresses in Hong Kong cinema in Cecilia Cheung, one wonders how she can turn in a career suicide performance. Apart from the NT$30 million pay check that she received from the role, her performance here is laughable at best and a far cry from the days of being acclaimed in Lost in Time and A Nite in Mongkok. Richie Ren is one actor that have improved dramatically in the past decade and in particular due to his involvement in numerous Johnny To's films, but here, he lacks presence, more wooden than Edison Chen and his character is far to distant for the audience to feel for him. Perhaps the best thing in the film comes in the form of the much missed Kathy Chow and despite her limited screen time, she graced the film with the same determination like she did 13 years ago in the grity Beast Cops. Still, the shoulder of blame should be attributed to Frankie Chan, a director who have not done much in the past decade and have not made a decent film in almost 20 years. With such a huge budget on the ball, what was Jackie Chan thinking? Couldn't he have at least gone for someone who can handle epic commercial war movies like Benny Chan or himself? These are all questions that are no longer of importance, as the fact is out there – The Legendary Amazons is a bad film and there are no excuses to be made. All in all, The Legendary Amazons fails big time, especially with all the talent involved. To say The Legendary Amazons is a bad film is an understatement, as not only did it fail to meet expectations, but it is an outright disappointing effort. If not for some good action scenes and the grand scale of the battle scenes, the film will not even be watchable. Still, for such a film, being watchable is not good enough and let's hope this is just a one off mis-step from Cecilia Cheung, as this is easily her worst performance in her career. It is that disappointing…Neo rates it 3/10

If there's a question I can ask director Frankie Chan, it will be whether he's genuinely proud of this effort. He's a veteran, and there's no denying that he's done a handful of entertaining films I've grown up with. There's no lack of funding in making this film, from the numerous costumes, weaponry, and sheer logistics in staging large scaled battles, coupled with special effects that looked really slipshod, but this one really took the cake in the disrespect shown toward production values on the whole, and with that insulted the technical craftsmanship of those who work hard in the industry, having their craft sullied by quick hacks who couldn't care less about quality so long as they get a semblance of something done. It's as if the producers had paid Cecilia Cheung millions from their budget, then realized their folly as they ran out of funds to ensure quality in their delivery such that corners had to be cut, and cut in the most disgraceful manner.Battle scenes were so obviously switched from outdoor shoots to interior sound stages with badly done green screen effects, and the action choreography itself was lacking in ideas that it started to be unintentionally funny, from obvious speeding up of frames to compensate for the actresses lack of martial arts background, to horses definitely on a slow trot rather than being ridden at top speed to escape pursuing enemies. I could have sworn the cast were just going through the motion during production, with little care being taken to ensure some form of proper stance adopted to make them credible warriors. Believability is something never considered at all by anyone in the film, and the wire work utilized here is nothing short of embarrassing the craftsman who had perfected the art of executing such moves seamlessly and without much fanfare. At best, it looked like Chinese Opera (no offense intended), with many twirls and gentle combat passing off as intense life or death battles Boasting a cast of veterans such as Ritchie Jen, Kathy Chow, Cheng Peipei and Cecilia Cheung herself amongst other relative unknowns to make up the numbers of 10 or more of the widowers from the Yang family who had to step up and be counted when the sole male bloodline is called upon to lead grossly outnumbered troops against the enemy. We learn who they all are, right down to their maiden names and weapons of choice, but frankly you would only remember the many poor wirework and effects trying to pass the characters off as formidable warriors. What you would get is the sorry feeling for any self-respecting performer having to put up with sub-standard support that calls for the actresses to be at their best to avoid laughing at themselves, keeping a straight face to deliver cringeworthy lines and juvenile action pieces.Which is a pity, because there was so much potential hidden in the film that went unrealized, if only they had paid a lot more attention to what story they want to tell rather than to take on every caricature, and added depth to the romantic story contained within, which came complete with some lesbian undertones as well. But I digress. In summary it's summer blockbuster material with a very simple plot of good versus evil, with the former being outnumbered and hampered from victory no thanks to corrupt officials, and the reliance of their strategies and wits to defeat both the enemy from within and the larger invasion forces. If done right that is. Big action pieces were assembled haphazardly, with the ones that took the cake involving Raiders of the Lost Ark type giant rolling balls on fire, and the constructing of human bridges so ridiculous it has to be seen to be believed. Characters came and went according to their conveniences when doing battle, that the initial strategy of flanking and outflanking the enemy, and the employment of military deceit, turned out to be nothing but one complete, incoherent mess.The filmmakers could have just gotten away with it if not for the very amateurish martial arts on display, since in my opinion good kungfu trounces the need of a proper plot, though not always. What's legendary in this film, was clearly the blatant slip shoddiness of its filmmaking, grossly insulting all paying audiences by conning their hard earned dollar to deliver something even if made in the 1970s, will be frowned upon for its lack of artistic merit and integrity. The subtitle in Mandarin refers to how military orders are like mountains, unmovable and expected to be followed to the letter, and would have served as a pretty awesome crux to the entire movie, but in reality these scenes became jokes, and the only unmovable experience was the innate need to see just how bad this film will go and stoop to.Films such as Legendary Amazons can be made with Mainland funding, but please either have a little quality control or stop meddling with a veteran filmmaker's vision (I have an inkling Frankie Chan could have suffered interference from those who hold the purse strings), and restrict its distribution to a home market that is perhaps a lot more forgiving than markets abroad, where competition in quality is keener, and any average films put side by side will make them look like masterpieces. Avoid at all cost, unless you have plenty of time to burn, in which I would recommend you'd get more kick out of watching paint dry. The Yang Family Warriors this is not, but more like The Yang Family Circus Clown Troupe.