By 1861, the Christian Taiping Rebellion from its capital Nanking has conquered half of Imperial China. The corrupt Ching court orders General Pang Qingyun (Jet Li) to join with General Ho in an attack on the rebels. General Ho is a corrupt powerful leader. He withdraws his forces and lets Pang's men be massacred. Pang escapes by pretending to be dead. Jiang Wuyang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Zhao Erhu (Andy Lau) leads a local militia. Zhao Erhu is unwilling to take in Pang and then General Ho's men confiscate provisions from them. The three men join in a blood oath to lead a loyalist militia to battle the rebels all the way to Nanking. Qingyun has an affair with Erhu's wife Liansheng laying the seed for their destruction by Ho and the corrupt court.There are tons of rooting interest problems. There is a main villain in Ho and a bunch of little villains in the court. Yet the three heroes never fight against them. They fight rebels who are perfectly honorable, by the movie's own notions. In fact, the Taiping commander does the most selfless act in the entire movie. This makes the big battles not much fun. The audience is forced to root for commanders working for Darth Vader. This is essentially a Greek tragedy and the movie should know that. It tries to be an action adventure war movie and that only highlights its tonal problems. Jet Li's character is terribly flawed in so many ways. This should be Shakespearian, not Michael Bay.

I first thought this was going to be another Chinese war movie with different kingdoms fighting one another for different reasons. Mainly just to conquer and in a way that is what this movie is basically about. But it has certain attributes and direction with the story that makes it more captivating. Plus this doesn't really have over the top fight sequences or super unrealistic kung-fu. In fact the fight sequences is realistic for the most part and it has a story that is actually quite possible. It basically takes a real historical event and goes in a what if it happened this way to reach that point kind a direction. And it actually works for the most part. And the three cast members who are like the three most popular actors in china working today. Really are right for these roles. The plot is basically about three brothers, not by blood but by loyalty and allegiance fighting constant battles. And I seen a lot of these types of movies to know what is going to happen. But certain areas and direction this one takes makes it kinda new in a way. From the three brothers Jet Li plays General Pang a guy that pretended to be dead in order to survive a war. But starts to build courage and his vision. Andy Lau plays Er Hu a leader of a group of bandits that has certain codes and compassion. And Takeshi Kaneshiro plays Wu Pang, he is basically one of the brothers caught in the middle between the other two brothers. Who is both in love with a certain courtesan. But the thing is the love triangle actually is relevant in this movie and blends in with the story. Not a lot but it does have relevance. And the three actors like I said were just right for the roles in this movie, even if Jet Li's small stature makes him look awkward with all the armor he wears in this film. Although most of the way through it's a pretty generic war movie about loyalty and reasons for fighting. But the conclusion actually stands out and makes it, it's own. It's a very watchable war movie and is worth a rent.7.8/10

Set in the nineteenth century when civil war plagues China one man Pang Qingyun, survives an overwhelming rout after a supposedly allied army stands by and does nothing. After the battle he is taken to a bandit village which is soon attacked by the very army that stood by earlier. He persuades the village leader, Zhao Er-Hu, and his brother to join an army and fight for the people. At first things go well for them and they are successful; they also stand for justice; then they decide that the city of Suzhou must be taken before going on to take Nanking. They think it will take three years but it is five years before Suzhou falls and when it does they are low on food and a rival army is already heading towards Nanking. Pang orders the execution of four thousand captured soldiers even though Ur-Hu promised that they would be spared if the city surrendered. They continue and take Nanking but their friendship is over and Pang is given the governorship of the city by the Empress. The problem is other lords want him to get rid of Er-Hu first.I hadn't heard of this film before seeing it advertised on television; I decided to watch it as I assumed it would be similar to other Chinese films I'd seen such as 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' or 'Hero'; I was wrong about that as the action here was far more realistic; no running up walls or flying across the roof tops here. The battle scenes were still very dramatic though and there was a degree of stylised choreography in the fighting which added to the excitement. I thought actors Jet Li, Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro did good jobs although not speaking Mandarin I can't comment on their accents! While I wouldn't call this a must see film it wasn't bad and is worth watching on television.

Part martial arts movie, part historical epic, director Peter Chan's film 'The Warlords' recreates the Taiping rebellion in China. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a mess; both in terms of the movements in the action scenes, and in terms of the high politics, I found it very hard to follow who exactly was doing what to whom; but all too easy to get the general drift of a movie that was big on set pieces but low on subtlety. Most crucially, the film conveys no idea whatsoever of what the rebellion was actually about in its story of three "blood brothers" motivated solely by personal oath. The result: lots of blood, but not too much in the way of enlightenment.