Rating: NR
Length: 131 minutes

Widescreen 1.85:1 Color (Anamorphic)

ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1
MANDARIN: DTS
MANDARIN: Dolby Digital 5.1

English, Spanish

It's the Five Dynasties period in China (10th Century) and everyone wants to rule the kingdom after the mysterious death of the emperor. Will it be his wife, his brother or his son? And is the story that he died from a scorpion sting true or was he murdered?

As seems to be the case with movies of this genre in recent history, the visuals are stunning, as is also the case of the very lovely Zhang Ziyi. If you're anticipating fight scenes with swords and lots of blood you'll get them, just not in the quantity you might be expecting. This is more of a drama than a fight film.

This movie simply drags on slowly and only speeds up a couple of times for the two hours it takes to finish. It's like the director determined to keep the dialogue short and sweet and to concentrate on the visuals; in short this is what I would refer to as an "artsy" It's like going to a restaurant expecting a full-course meal and only being served a small cup of desert; it's sweet but unsatisfying.

• "Master of Ceremonies": An Exclusive Interview with Director Feng Xiaogang
• "Warrior Prince": An Exclusive Interview with Leading Man Daniel Wu
• "Legend of the Black Scorpion" Making Of Featurette
• "A Dynasty Uncovered": Behind the Scenes Featurette
• Trailer Gallery

On the back of the cover this movie is referred to as "Hamlet" meets "Kill Bill". The only similarities this film has with "Kill Bill" is the sword play and nice quantities of fake blood and if you're familiar with "Hamlet", you pretty much know how this film is going to end. My expectations were high because the story sounded interesting, with what I thought would be a lot of political intrigue, and Zhang Ziyi, a very lovely and talented actress, was the lead. If they would have added more meaningful dialogue and trimmed thirty minutes off the runtime this film could have worked. The movie is too slow and there are simply too many holes the viewer has to fill in; for example, the back-story between the Empress and her step-son. If you watch this do so with low expectations; you won't be as disappointed as I am.

Xiang Bin - Imperial Guard

You Ge - Emperor Li

Xiaoming Huang - The Minister's son

Ma Lun - Pharmacist

Jingwu Ma - The Minister

Zeng Qiusheng - Pei Hong

Daniel Wu - Prince Wu Luan

Xu Xiyan - Ling

Liu Yanbin - Messenger

Ziyi Zhang - Empress Wan

[Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Memoirs of a Geisha]

Chunyu Zheng - Imperial Guard

Zhou Zhonghe - Chamberlain

Xun Zhou - Qing Nu