'The Flowers of War' sells nationalistic propaganda to the world

My original review of "The Flowers of War" received a lot of negative attention. My views haven't changed, not even with so many commenters pulling the race card.

Director Zhang Yimou is known for movies that have the theme of Chinese people facing hardship such as his 1994 "To Live." That doesn't mean he hasn't directed action movies. His wuxia movies include the 2002 "Hero" and the 2004 "House of Flying Daggers." Like these movies "The Flowers of War" has a rich use of color.

"The Flowers of War" was based on a best-selling novel by Geling Yan "13 Flowers of Nanjing." One wonders if Geling Yan wasn't pandering to a Western audience with the choice of 13 because in Chinese and Japanese 13 is not an unlucky number. The bad luck vibes come from a European Judeo-Chrsitan tradition. I haven't read the novel, but this 2011 movie was the Chinese entry for the 84th Academy Awards but did not make the shortlist. It also was nominated for the 69th Golden Globe Awards, but not for Best Motion Picture. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film but lost to a movie from Iran, "A Separation."  It was nominated for a Best Film Award at the sixth annual Asian Film Awards, but lost to "A Separation." Ni Ni did win an award as Best Newcomer. The movie won an award for Best Sound Editing at the Golden Reel Awards.

Set on 13 December 1937, "The Flowers of War" takes on a mystical air with children running through the fog with an air of desperation.  The narrator is a young girl, Shu (Zhang Xinyi), and she and her classmates are running back to the sanctuary of a Christian church, the Winchester Cathedral. The pursuers are the lustful Japanese army and the flight of the girls and one boy is aided by the remnants of the Nanjing Army led by Major Li (Tong Dawai).

Bale's character, John Miller, is also heading toward the cathedral. He's a mortician and the cathedral's priest has died. John meets up with the girls and they reach the cathedral which has a large compound encircled by high solid walls and a wood gate. With the priest dead, his body blown away by a bomb, and the cook, runaway with the food, the children are alone--a dozen girls and a one orphan boy, George Chen (Huang Tianyuan).  You can see where this is heading?

John is not a good man, yet. He is a mercenary at heart and his scenes with the young girls comes across as a bit creepy. John isn't the only opportunist searching for sanctuary. A group of high-class prostitutes also force their way into the compound. They are glamorous, beautifully coiffed and made-up as if they were just taking an evening stroll through the bombed and burned city, stepping elegantly over the corpses.

John is delighted with these ladies of questionable virtue and takes a particular interest in the haughtiest, and the formerly most sought after whore, the aloof and beautiful Yu Mo (Ni Ni).

John is searching for money. The ladies are hoping he'll be able to use his Western face to get them out of Nanjing. They take over the basement. John remains upstairs in the late father's room, getting drunk. When the Japanese break in and attempt to rape the students, he at first cowers in an armoire, but eventually John emerges, dressed as a priest and attempts to bluff his way past the Japanese. The Japanese aren't quite convinced, but the noble Major Li picks a few soldiers off and the soldiers retreat to capture the sniper.

The character development of the adults is shaky. John's English dialogue seems unnatural and even after the initial creepiness of John's money-grubbing, grasping character wears off, there's still something queasy about the juxtaposition between the nostalgic sensuousness of the inner sanctum of the women's world of lingerie and laughter in the basement and the death and grittiness of war. The situation will tug at your heartstrings, but still the transformation from drunken mercenary to conscientious "father" isn't convincing.

The girls are temporarily "safe" when a good (a stiff Atsuro Watanabe) Japanese officer assures Father John that order has come to Nanjing and the Colonel posts soldiers to "protect" the girls--keeping them in. Yet under orders, the colonel "invites" the girls and not their guardian to a party where it seems assured they will be raped and then killed.

Using his mortician skills John helps replace the girls with the courtesans who nobly sacrifice themselves, but they are one person short. The young boy volunteers to pretend to be a girl. There are 13 flowers. John and the girls make their escape into an uncertain future because Chinese viewers will know the Christians weren't particularly welcome under the communists.

"The Flowers of War" is a propaganda movie coming out in a time when most of the world has moved past the simplistic characterizations of the enemy as evil and the other side as saintly. Chinese soldiers and Japanese soldiers both committed atrocities during the war and pre-World War II China was subjected to humiliation by Western nations for decades.  In 1937, consider the condition and legal status of the African American man in the Deep South and the native Africans in South Africa and you'll be able to put things in better perspective. The 1930s and 1940s was a time when inhumanity toward other men and women based on race was considered reasonable. Were the Japanese expected to be any different?

In reading history, I find that the Americans atrocities are often somewhat mitigated by accounts of Japanese torture and war crimes. I've also read, in English, similar explanations for Korean and Chinese transgressions. I seldom read that about Japanese soldiers even thought there are accounts of Chinese atrocities against Chinese and Japanese prior to Nanking, recorded by Swiss businessman Tom Simmen.  What happened in Shanghai preceded Nanking and it seems that the Chinese weren't above torture and this is something that should be remembered when historically evaluating what happened in Nanking.

'The Great Magician' introduces an amusing romantic triangle

An ice queen dressed in white with a severe set of bangs, a magician who has returned to China after the fall of the Qing Dynasty mixing Western and Eastern magical skills and a big bully who remains fascinated with prestidigitation come together for this amusing period piece, "The Great Magician," currently streaming on Netflix.

To put this in a historical perspective, the Qing Dynasty began in 1644 and was the last imperioal dynasty for China. China's power was undermined by wars with European nations and those infamous unequal treaties that Western nations such as the U.K, the U.S., France, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Prussia, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Belgium and the Netherlands. The first of the unequal treaties for China was the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing with the British Empire. The 1901 Boxer Protocol would add an Asian nation to this exclusive club and the U.K. would add the 1914 Smila Accord and a year later the Empire of Japan would have the Twenty-One Demands and then the 1933 Tanggu Truce.

Japan's first unequal treaties would be signed in 1854 with the U.S. (Convention of Kanagawa) and the U.K. (Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty). Japan would be first in line for an eneuql treaty with Korea (Japan-Korea Treaty of 1876). The U.S. and the Qing Dynasty would also impose an unequal treaty in 1882. Japan and China would be the only Asian nations to impose unequal treaties.

The Qing Dynasty ended with the ouster of the Empress Dowager Longyu and the last emperor Puyi. Puyi would be briefly restored to the throne in 1917 by the Chinese warlord Zhang Xun, but that would last less than a month. Puyi would be expelled from the Forbidden City in 1924. In 1932, he'd become the ruler of Manchuria under the support of the Imperial Japanese Army.

The 2011 movie "The Great Magician" (大魔术师; traditional Chinese: 大魔術師) takes place during that time of chaos between the fall of the Qing Dynasty when the Western nations had imposed the unequal treaties and China was reduced to squabbling warlords attempting to enlarge their own fiefdoms. There is a looming Japanese presence (Kenya Sawada), but the invasion hasn't yet been fully realized

If you're wondering how the warlords got their hordes, according to Derek Yee, Chun Tin-nam and Lau Ho-leung's script, a little fear and a bit of magic never hurt. Liu Kun Shan (Wu Gang) performs a frightening bit of magic that convinces a large group of men to join the forces of warlord Lei Bully (Lau Ching-wan). Bully has several wives, six to be exact, and hopes to add a seventh.

Wife seven, Liu Yin (Zhou Xun) resists Bully who has threatened her father. Her fiancé had disappeared during his journey to Europe. Yet now he has returned as a magician, Chang Hsien (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) who is working with revolutionaries who want to use the magic show to kidnap Bully.

This production is richly realized with detailed backgrounds and costumes. There is no real enemy and neither Bully or Chang Hsien are political animals. Both entranced by the pale and unyielding Liu Yin, they are bound together in a comedic triangle.

Director Derek Lee, gives us both magic that crosses over into fantasy (with just enough CGI) and a light-hearted rivalry that ends with a question mark and hopefully more adventures to follow. The movie won a 2013 Hong Kong Film Award for Best Costume and Make up Design (Jessie Dai and Chung Man Yee).  In Mandarin with English subtitles, "The Great Magician" is available on Netflix for instant streaming.

'City of Life and Death' sheds light on the gray areas of war

The 2009 Chinese historical drama has a poetic English name, "City of Life and Death," but a repetitive Chinese name "Nanking! Nanking!" (or "Nanjing! Nanjing!") Either way, this movie which was written and directed by Lu Chuan attempts to shed light on the gray areas of war by looking at the lives of several people in the city of Nanjing when it fell to the Japanese Imperial Forces in 1937.
Filmed in black and white, the city of Nanjing has just been captured by the Japanese Imperial Army. We learn before the movie really begins at the camera shows us old postcards with dire short messages. From there, we are introduced to a Japanese soldier, Kadokawa Masao (Nakaisumi Hideo), who has been lying on his back looking at the sun. He joins other soldiers in a foxhole before a burning city. Tanks are moving toward the city's walls as the men wait.

Another postcard tells us that the Chinese National Revolutionary Army is in chaos. We are in the city and soldiers line up. Along with them are the city residents. Chinese soldiers want to leave the city, but their fellow Chinese soldiers attempt to prevent them from exiting. Here we meet Lieutenant Lu Jianxiong (Liu Ye) and Shunzi (Zhao Yisui) who attempt to convince some of their comrades to stay and defend the city. With the black and white format, it's not easy to differentiate the two sides and the horror of the bloodshed, burned bodies and mutilation is muted. We don't see the beauty of flight as in the strangely dream-like desperation of the girls at the beginning of "Flowers of War," and instead we see dust and confusion in the ruins of a city.

Much of the aftermath is from Kadokawa's perspective. He watches men being killed on the streets, women being led away. He sees corpses--some whole but not untouched as the naked woman and some mutilated. Heads hang like macabre celebratory decorations from the ruins. And yet those still living stand like a grain field. Leaving Kadokawa, we see things from an overhead view. From some vantage points, the people fill the streets in a seemingly unending fields of humanity. It is at this point we understand just how few men are in this victorious army. As the Japanese mow down people running into the sea, use them for bayonet practice, bury them alive or burn alive in a building set on fire, the military necessity of the actions is hinted at. What if, each Chinese person had been willing to sacrifice for the greater good?

With the men and soldiers defeated, the international witnesses who remain in Nanking such as John Rabe (John Paisley), Minnie Vautrin (Beverly Peckous)  and Durdin (Sam Voutas) set up a safety area where people seek refuge, food, water.  By safe, that's a matter of relativity and some of the people there include wounded soldiers. Japanese soldiers periodically intrude; they harass and assault the refugees, especially the women. The daughter of Rabe's secretary, Tang Tianxiang (Fan Wei) is thrown out the window to her death and his sister-in-law is raped (Yao Di). The Japanese demand 100 comfort women.

The camera shake, quick cuts and at times blurred motion produces a feeling of chaos. A whole range of human feeling is portrayed and unlike "Flowers of War" the rapes do not have a voyeuristic quality. The so-called good Nazi, John Rabe is shown protesting the brutality and regretfully finally leaving China, unable to take all the Chinese people he had known and worked with.

Not all the Japanese soldiers feel the weight of their horrific actions. Yet we see how the attitudes of the soldiers toward the Chinese women also carries over to their own women or perhaps it is the other way around. Kadokawa slowly becomes desensitized to the violence but recognizing the same dull resignation in the eyes of a Japanese woman that he has seen in the Chinese breaks the protective shell he has built.

"Life is more difficult than death," Kadokawa tells another Japanese soldier after he has allowed to Chinese prisoners to escape. In the end, photographs tell us the fate of each character by their name and their lifespan.

Although this film has been criticized for its sympathetic portrayal of a Japanese soldier in Kadokawa, the film gives a more balanced view of the Rape of Nanking and clearly shows the brutality of war and the heavy price both sides pay.

"City of Life and Death" is currently available on Netflix for instant streaming.

Fanning the flames of hate with 'The Flowers of War'

The 2011 Chinese movie "The Flowers of War" (金陵十三釵) is a historical war drama directed by Zhang Yimou. In my original essay, "'The Flowers of War' has overpowering scent of nationalism" (also published on Examiner.com) I panned the movie saying:

Have no doubt. Director Zhang Yimou's "The Flowers of War" is a propaganda movie where the Chinese are all heroic and the Japanese invaders are all despicable. We've seen this kind of war movie before, but haven't audiences matured beyond the black and white stark morality?

The LA Times reviewer wrote "Zhang Yimou’s 19th feature is decidedly backward-looking: A lavish period weepie set against the atrocities of the Nanking Massacre, “Flowers” abounds with well-worn movie archetypes and slathers on schmaltz." and then added:

But however terrible and real the threat of rape, the clumsy screenplay turns every Japanese soldier into a rampaging maniac, some of them screaming exultantly upon discovering virgins. The exception is commander Hasegawa (Atsuro Watabe), a soft-spoken man who appreciates music. The genteel colonel isn’t, however, above arranging for the convent girls to be delivered into the hands of his superiors, setting in motion a contrived series of climactic events that are nonetheless affecting because of their elemental power.

 The Hollywood Reporter reviewer agreed writing, “If Warner Bros. had made a film with this plot back in 1942, it would have made effective anti-Japanese propaganda and probably absorbing drama in the bargain. Today it just plays like hokum.”

"The Flowers of War" was based on the novel "13 Flowers of Nanjing" by Geling Yan. The movie was the official Chinese selection for the Best Foreign-Language Film for the 84th Academy Awards and it didn't make the short list. It was, however, nominated for the Golden Globe Awards. 

The story begins in 1937 as the Japanese Imperial Army marches into Nanjing and begins the massacre. Girls run back to their school, a Roman Catholic cathedral. An American mortician, John Miller (Christian Bale) joins them, but he's there to ready the priest for burial. In time, Miller and the girls are joined by prostitutes who hide in a cellar. 

A Japanese officer (Atsuro Watabe) places guards outside the gates and assures the school girls will be protected. Yet he is overruled later when his commanding officers send an invitation to the school girls to come and sing at a victory celebration.  The prostitutes and the only boy in the mission agree to disguise themselves as school girls and sacrifice themselves: They are the 13 flowers . 

Miller leaves with the girls hidden in a truck, supposedly to freedom. That might seem like a happy ending, but we know that Christians and people with Western education weren't treated kindly under the Communist rule that followed the end of World War II. It's something like having the real-life Maria von Trapp and the Trapp Family singers escape into France or the story of the M.S. St. Louis. 

My last review attempted to give readers a historical perspective but mostly bought out comments by hysterical pro-Chinese respondents. I then did research and found, not surprisingly, that other critics found the movie problematic for the same reasons, however, those people weren't identified as Japanese and I've found that sometimes being critical of a Korean movie or person or a Chinese movie or person can bring out the biases. I don't think that I'm prejudiced so much as the writers revealed their prejudices.

• Review for Examiner.com
• Review for Pasadena Art Beat

The movie was based on a novel by Geling Yan, "13 Flowers of Nanjing," (金陵十三釵)  or Gold Tomb (Mausoleum) 13 Hairpins or 13 Girls of Jinling. Consider that Google Translate gives Mausoleum of War for 陵十三釵.  I can't comment on the book because I haven't read it. The screenplay is by Liu Heng. 

The movie was the top grossing Chinese film in 2011. While director Zhang Yimou has stated that the movie is about love and sacrifice, there's an uneasy undercurrent of sexism. Outside, where danger lurks, the world is cast in muted tones. Yet cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding makes the inner sanctuary where the prostitutes hide a place of saturated colors and glamour. The institute of prostitution under the Chinese is seen as less brutal than the rampage of the Japanese, setting up the old concept of war time rape as a crime against the property.  As Susan Brownmiller wrote in her book "Against Our Will," the rape of women during war is used to demoralize the sons, fathers, brothers and husbands who are unable to protect their women.  Rape as an offense against property  becomes part of the rewards of war. 

In "The Flowers of War," we don't see the pimps or madames that have left these prostitutes unprotected.  The focus is on a saintly Chinese soldier who attempts to protect the Chinese women and makes the ultimate sacrifice. Yet while we hear about American soldiers taking revenge for the torture of their comrades by the Japanese, we rarely hear that might be the case with the Japanese soldiers in Nanking. R.J. Rummel wrote that Chinese peasants had as much to fear from the Nationalist Chinese soldiers.  Swiss national Tom Simmen photographed Chinese soldiers near Shanghai in 1937 as they tortured and executed both Japanese prisoners of war and suspected collaborating Chinese. 

The movie fails to evaluate a system of sexual slavery that trafficked women from Japan and China to places as far as the United States.  According to the National Women's History Museum, most of the Chinese female prostitutes who found their way to San Francisco were kidnapped, lured with false promises or purchased by brokers for sale. There were teenage girls and even babies and the average life span in the trade was only four years. 

Because we don't see the ferocity of Chinese pimps but do see the beauty and strength of the 12 Chinese prostitutes in "The Flowers of War" an uncomfortable comparison is made between the benefits and bounty of the Chinese system of prostitution as opposed to the wartime enslavement by alien enemies in the guise of the Japanese. We're left to wonder if the American mortician John Miller wasn't enticed to China by the fleshy cheap adventures made available under British colonialism where exotic women were acceptably enslaved--the original yellow fever fanned by stories like Madame Butterfly. 

There were people who could be called saints during World War II, but as a whole, men at war aren't saints. World War II was a brutal war where women were raped by the Axis powers and by the Allied forces. There are many instances of Allied forces deliberately killing Japanese prisoners. Even on home ground, moral ambiguity existed and in today's movies and TV serials we see such examples  in TV series like "Foyle's War" or "Detective De Luca." "The Flowers of War" is a step backward story wise and it is troubling that China should put that movie forward as its entry into the Academy Awards. 

'Tai Chi Hero' high graphic arts fun

If you saw "Tai Chi Zero," then you'll know that "Tai Chi Hero" comes up with a solution to the family curse and that's why "Tai Chi Hero" begins with a wedding. Stephen Fung brings a graphic novel sensibility to subtitles and martial arts movie. This is a light-hearted fable about the founding of tai chi.
Since some of you might be coming into this second movie without seeing the first, let me get you up to speed. The Chen Village has this wonderful style of martial arts that draws on inner strength. Yet because it was foretold that the village would be destroyed if an outsider learned their martial art, they decided to allow the man, Yang Lu Chan (Yuan XiaoChao), join because he helped save their village from the steam-driven precursor to the modern tank. They are making him a part of the village by marriage.
You can tell that his bride Chen Yu Niang (Angelababy) isn't exactly happy about this wedding. In "Tai Chi Zero," we learned she had been in love with Fang Zi Jing (Eddie Peng). Fang, however, was disgraced and left the village. Fang had been educated in England and that brain-washing has him on the side of the evil. Yes, the British and Westernization is the looming evil, but a native steampunk influence saves this from being the traditionalists against the innovators.

First, Yang Lu Chan must learn the Chen style and because of Yu Niang's coolness toward her new husband and the problems of the master-disciple dynamics (not to mention the traditional Chinese husband-wife behind the walls warfare), Yu Niang demands that Lu Chan sleep on the floor and not even think of nookie. With his puppy dog sweetness, Lu Chan seems to lust more for food than for Yu Niang anyway.

Chen Yu Niang's father, Master Chen (Tony Leung Ka Fai), didn't have all his baskets in this one smart, good-looking egg of a daughter. He had a son and the son, Zai Yang (Feng Shaofeng) returns. Zai Yang and his wife have to do that hierarchal dance with Lu Chan and Yu Niang. It's a matter of domestic dominance and social order complicated by birthright and merit or martial arts skills.

Yet Fang returns, embittered with the death of his beloved. Things get complicated, but never too serious.
Because "Tai Chi Hero" is a comedy and because we know it's the second part of a trilogy, we know that Lu Chan will survive. His climatic fight with Li Qiankun (Yuen Biao) is above his greatest temptation: food not sex.

There's some grain of truth to this tale about tai chi. There was a historical figure named Chan Wanting who lived from 1580 to 1660.  To put things in perspective, 1580 was the year that Frances Drake completed his circumnavigation of the world on the Golden Hind and Spanish troops landed in Ireland. By the time of Chen's death, King Charles II returned from exile to rule England. James II of England was named Duke of Normandy by Louis XIV of France.

Yang Lu Chan is an actual historical figure who lived from 1799-1872. According to Wikipedia, Lu Chan was from a poor family of Hebei Province and initially learned martial arts as a child. He met Chen De Hu and saw him performing his martial art. Chen referred him to his hometown, Chen Village. Lu Chan eventually became known as Yang Wudi or Yang the Invincible because he never lost a match and never seriously hurt the people he fought against. Yang Lu Chan was the first person outside of the Chen family to learn what became known as tai chi chuan. He learned it from Chen Changxing and then went on to teach what became known as the Yang style. His own students would include officials of the Qing dynasty and some of the elite Manchu Imperial guards from Beijing's Forbidden City.

This movie isn't interested so much in historical detail. Director Fung in his humorous and at times frenetically visual style leaves no doubt in your mind about that. His Lu Chan is more cartoon character and superhero.

So sit back for some fanciful family entertainment with interactive media-influence graphics and subtitles that work overtime to keep you in the martial arts informational overload. "Tai Chi Hero" is available as a DVD and Blu-Ray.

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'Tai Chi Zero' is a fabulous first episode

Chinese movies are easy to miss when they come through Los Angeles--they don't play in many places. If you're somewhere else, I'm not even sure that this movie, "Tai Chi Zero," even made out your way, but if you like well choreographed martial arts with whimsy and a silly sense of sweetness, then go to Amazon because "Tai Chi Zero" is available to stream.

If you've gone to Chinese movies, you'll be used to subtitles, even if you speak and read Chinese. That's because the spoken language is what keeps the Chinese apart while the written language mostly unifies them (despite the more recent developments of jiantizi 简体字 (pinyin: jiǎntǐzì) and fantizi 繁體字 (pinyin: Fántǐzì)). Director/writer Stephen Fung in his fourth feature film uses subtitles like footnotes and not the dry intellectual type. You don't have to be an expert on kung fu flicks to appreciate this amazing cast because the subtitles tell you who and what these people are. Fung's styles fuses Chinese movie subtitles, with graphic novel and web design.

The martial arts here is the real thing. Although newcomer Yuan has the fresh-faced eagerness of a golden retriever puppy, he was the 2008 Olympic Games Wushu gold medalist. "Tai Chi Zero" is about a young man Yang Lu Chan (Jayden Yuan or Yuan Xiaochao), born under difficult circumstances that are played out in black and white and with a heavy dose of slapstick humor. In "Tai Chi Zero," Yuan is called "The Freak" because he has a little bump on his upper forehead. When that spot is pushed he gets eye-blazing white mad and pretty much unstoppable.
Yang grows up fighting under Zhao Kanping (Fung Hak On) of the Divine Truth forces.  Yang becomes a martial arts master of the exterior forms but must seek out the interior forms because that freakish bump is changing color and if he doesn't learn interior peace, he will die.

Yang travels to Chen Village to learn this special form of martial arts, but because of an old curse, the villagers are forbidden to teach outsiders the Chen form. Yang determinedly continues to throw himself into the village and in each case, he's defeated by men, women and even kids. Each time, however, he learns through imitation.

Yuniang (Angelababy), the daughter of Master Chen, begins to notice him, but not in a romantic sense.

The village is threatened by the designs of the evil the British in the form of the East India Company. The East India Company is in cahoots with Yuniang's fiancé, Fang Zijin (Eddie Peng). Fang dresses in European clothes and hopes to bring electricity to the village. The East India Company is also determined to bring the railroad through China and right through Chen Village.

In an American Western movie, villages wanted the railroad to come through in hopes it would bring more people and more civilization. But that probably wasn't the sentiment of the Native Americans who saw the railroads bringing hoards more people to steal their land. So let's not think that Chen Village is exactly against progress, they might not want to Westernize and become pawns of the East India Company.

When Fang's electrical exhibition fails to impress, the East India Company brings out a special weapon: A woman named Claire (Mandy Lieu) and her steam-punky weapon of mass destruction--a crude dome-shaped tank.

"Tai Chi Zero" was nominated for several awards, including a nomination for the Golden Horse Award for Best Action Choreography (Sammo Hung Kam-bo) and Best Makeup & Costume Design (Timmy Yip), and the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Action Choreography, Best Art Direction, Best Cstume & Make Up design and Best Visual Effects.

I'm going to have to backtrack here. I didn't catch Fung's 2004 "Enter the Phoenix" or the 2005 "House of Fury" or the 2009 "Jump."  Fung is a writer on those three movies. Before that, he was an actor, making his debut in the 1990 "Forbidden Nights" as the child who grows up to become the protagonist.  So I don't know how representative "Tai Chi Zero" is of his work.

Both my husband and I found it light-hearted fun and indulged our taste for Asian steam punk. We went backwards. Having seen and enjoyed the second movie in this trilogy, "Tai Chi Hero," we found "Tai Chi Zero" on Amazon.com and watched it the same day. I recommend you do it in the order it was meant to be seen.