Product Description

From the legendary martial arts choreographer of THE MATRIX and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON and the acclaimed director of BLACK MASK comes ZU WARRIORS, the fast-action fantasy about an incredible fight for freedom against the ultimate evil! High in the clouds of China lies the Zu Mountain range, home to the immortal martial arts clans. But these mountains also attract a powerful fearsome demon, whose plan for total domination includes the annihilation of the clans! Now the seemingly unstoppable Insomnia is targeting the Omei clan, which must join forces with other Zu Warriors in the ultimate battle to save the world!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39612 in DVD
• Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
• Released on: 2006-03-07
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Cantonese
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Dubbed in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 104 minutes

Features

• From the creators of BLACK MASK, and choreographed by legendary Woo-ping Yuen (CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, THE MATRIX), comes ZU WARRIORS, the action-packed fantasy about the fight for freedom against the ultimate evil! High in the clouds of China resides the Zu Mountain range, home to numerous martial arts schools and immortal clans. These mountains are the envy of the evil Insomnia, a warmon

Amazon.com
A remake of the 1983 film of the same name, Zu Warriors is a martial arts drama set in a fantasy world where stoic warriors battle a powerful demon. With each kill, the horrific beast consumes their souls, making himself stronger and more difficult to slay. Hark Tsui directed this film, which stars a slew of actors (Ziyi Zhang, Sammo Hung, Cecelia Cheung) that are familiar to fans of Chinese action films. After Zu Warriors was released in 2001 to great success in China, Miramax snapped up the U.S. theatrical distribution rights for the film in the hopes that it would match the success of its earlier purchase Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But after sitting in Miramax's coffers for several years, Zu Warriors never made it into U.S. theaters and instead went straight to DVD in 2006. Fans of the martial arts genre will see some awesome action sequences. The actors move with grace and skill, and they overcome the cheesy digital effects, which already look dated. But the melodramatic pauses and all too frequent far-away glances are out of place and distracting--even in this fantasy. --Jae-Ha Kim

Customer Reviews

Another MIRAMAX "Hack Job"! (Don't Say You Weren't Warned)
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[[IMPORTANT NOTE!: Amazon has regretably been combining ''ALL'' of the reviews of the two different films mentioned in this review-- "THE LEGEND OF ZU" and "ZU WARRIORS" --into one lump group of reviews (extremely confusing & annoying!). So please be aware -- If you are reading this review on the "THE LEGEND OF ZU" ("China Star") import DVD page, that this is a review of the ("Miramax") 'Region-1' DVD, "ZU WARRIORS" and that this review does not apply to the import DVD.]]
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It should come as no great surprise that MIRAMAX is in the habit of destroying decent films -- (they have routinely overstepped their bounds of reasoning ever since the company was bought out by DISNEY all those many years ago). Add THIS movie to that long list!

"ZU WARRIORS" is a "hack & attack" piece of "re-editing" of the ORIGINAL Hong Kong version of this film, "THE LEGEND OF ZU" (which is the official English "dual title" to its original Cantonese title, "SUK SAAN CHUEN" (trans.: "Zu Mountain Legend").

Not only did the "brains" at "DISNAMAX" needlessly change the title, but they went so far as to change it in such a way that would allow it to become easily confused with an earlier Tsui Hark movie about the "Zu" legend called, "ZU: WARRIORS OF THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN" (dual Cantonese title, "SUK SAAN: SUN SUK SAAN GEEN HAP" - trans.: "Zu Mountain: New Zu Mountain Sword Heroes") -- a couple of unfortunate examples of just how much damage this "name change" caused can be readily discerned from the Amazon "customer reviews" of this film by "Mojo Jojo" from Dallas and the reviewer calling him/herself "Bumbo clot," both of whom clearly having never seen this film but are very familiar with that earlier film: so as a result they both attribute things related to that earlier movie over to this one -- things which have no relevance to this newer film whatsoever; "Bumbo" even going so far as to apply that first movie's original titles to this one! (Sorry "Jojo" and "Bumbo," but it was not my intention to pick on you, but merely to show just how easily "Disney/Miramax" set everyone up to be so effortlessly misled -- it was THEIR fault for changing the title in the way they did, NOT your fault for being caught off guard because of it! That's the only point I'm trying to make by using your reviews as examples, and I only picked yours to highlight simply because they were the first of however-many that are likely to follow that were posted.)

In addition to this, if there is one thing I have learned about American film distributors, it is that whenever they change the title of a "foreign" film-- ESPECIALLY one from Asia --you can reasonably expect that they have changed other more IMPORTANT things about the actual content of the movie itself. And, sure enough....

This "hack job" version of "The Legend of Zu" was so bad that it had been left sitting on the distributors' shelves for several years after they had "test screened" it on at least one occasion (some sources say a couple of them) and found itself being booed right off of the court. No $#!T, Sherlock??? What did those geniuses at DISNAMAX honestly expect would be the audiences' reaction??? Rather than showing their test audiences the movie in its original 'unadulterated' form (then editing afterwards, if necessary), they instead insisted on showing their audience a version of the movie in which they had stripped out around 20 minutes worth of celluloid (from a movie that the larger number of viewers already find confusing enough as it is). They had also covered over the original actors' own voices with a "dubbed" English track (rarely a good idea for Asian movies). Then to top it all off (as if all that were not bad enough), they proceeded to engage in the same kind of sneaky and sleazy "false marketing" tactics that American film distributors have of late become unashamedly guilty of when marketing lesser-known Asian films to American audiences -- by "giving credit" where such credit is NOT DUE (for instance, such as when "BANGKOK HAUNTED" ["Pee Sam Baht" - trans.: "Three-Baht Ghost"] was credited as having been directed by "Oxide and Danny Pang" [the brothers who co-directed "THE EYE"] when, in truth, ONLY a single 'vignette' of the entire movie had been directed by "OXIDE" Pang alone): In the case of "ZU WARRIORS," the transgression comes in the form of an announcement or "implication" that the very lovely & popular ZHANG ZIYI is the "STAR" of this movie, when, in fact, hers is a very MINOR (almost peripheral) role!

If you don't mind having your intelligence insulted by DISNAMAX, then go right ahead and waste $21 bucks on this diced & shreaded bastardization -- Lord knows you could just as easily waste it on something much worse! But if you are at all like me-- or like those 'test audience' members who PANNED this remolded abomination --and you really want to see this movie for what it was MEANT to be, your options are to find a "region-compatible" official release DVD from the Asian market, or snatching up any one of the many "all-region" pirate DVDs on eBay, or tracking down a VCD version -- all of which, in either case, will cost you CONSIDERABLY LESS MONEY than what Disney/Miramax is expecting you to shell out for their "Region-1" 'shicken-chit'.

Hong Kong rivals hollywood
This is Tsui Hark's follow up to his 1983 "Zu Warriors of the Magic Mountain". While this film is visually dazzling, the earlier film is something of a visual treat in its own right. Unfortunately the sequel lacks the charm of the original, at least for me. While Legend of Zu certainly rivals the special effects ability that we've grown accustomed to from Hollywood, the story seems a bit empty. Zhang Ziyi's role is nearly a cameo--don't expect to see much of her. Still, I found the film entertaining and, if you like Asian cinema, it's worth a look.

This movie inspires a Love/Hate relationship with it...
It's "interesting" but "confusing." I think it's the continuity problems with so darn many people dying and then getting resurrected, sometimes in new bodies... It's just, well, confusing. Don't get me wrong it's kind of a cool movie once you've watched it a couple times and understand what the heck is going on.

It has some really cool special effects, but it also has some really cheesy special effects. So, I suppose I could best describe it as having "inconsistent" special effects.

On the plus side, this feature has both the American-released chop-job and the "extended" (Read: original) Cantonese version. So, in that regard, it is good. So, if you really want to watch the unedited version in subtitles, you can. Probably one of the saving graces of this release.

Video's okay, audio's okay, voice acting is so-so for the dub... It's kind of a bizarro live-action anime in some regards. Oddly reminiscent of Dragon Ball Z.