Good, but could and should have been better
Let me start by saying that I purchased this movie mostly because of Chow Yun Fat and partly out of interest in Confucius. I must also say that I am unfamiliar with most of the other actors in the movie and know practically nothing about the production of the movie.
I have given this movie only 3 stars because I think that it's overly compressed, and I'll explain this with two examples. First, if you receive the same edition of the movie I did, you're going to encounter a cover that features Chow Yun Fat and a beautiful woman. The presence of the woman on the cover (who I suspect is a prominent Chinese actress; I apologize for my ignorance on this point) led me to believe that she would play a significant role in the film. For anyone anticipating this: She doesn't. And in the actual viewing, her interaction with Chow comes across as a throw-away--one suspects that there is at least another hour of footage featuring the two together, but that it was discarded in the interests of time.
A more extended example of this is, unfortunately, the entire 2nd half of the movie. Confucius and his disciples' exile is treated--strange to say--almost perfunctorily. The only real sense of progression one gets from this half of the movie comes from the changing geography and the rapidly aging appearance of Confucius' face.
Having said all that, this is still a good movie. The first half of the movie plays out thoughtfully and at times is even exciting. Even in the sections that play out too rapidly, there are a number of touching scenes that demonstrate the devotion between Confucius and his students. Nor should I leave out that movie does manage a degree of visual or artistic achievement in its recreation of the period. And, finally, Chow Yun Fat brings the sincerity and conviction to his part that his fans have come to expect from his performances (even in some of the bad films, like Bulletproof Monk).
As I've said, I'm not familiar with the production history behind the movie. And it certainly makes sense that the people responsible for the movie deemed it commercially unwise to release what feels like probably should've been a 5 hour experience. Within those constraints, I suppose they did the best that they could. But for a home release, and given the significance of the subject matter, if there is a director's cut of the movie out there somewhere, it'd be really nice if they put it out there for us.
