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Set in the lawless Gobi Desert during the infancy of the eighth-century Tang Dynasty, He Ping’s Chinese Western of sorts throws together two adversarial soldiers and a rag-tag crew of misfits with names like Old Diehard, Little Salamander, and One Eye in an effort to protect a camel caravan and its much-sought-after cargo from a legion of bandits and the marauding Turk army. Much of what unfurls is reminiscent of The Seven Samurai and Sergio Leone’s "Man with No Name" trilogy, though He (Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker) squanders the rich set-up by slathering on cheesy CGI effects and hacking together the fight sequences in such a way that it’s impossible to tell who’s impaling who. That said, the sets of the frontier outposts, reclusive Shangri-Las, and ramshackle garrisons impress, and the performances by Jiang Wen and Kîchi Nakai as the men of honor pitted against each other are heartfelt and give the film some dignity. Wang Xueqi is pat but necessary as the nefarious bandit warlord; Vicki Zhao as a general’s daughter delivers the kind of sexy feistiness that Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi have made a signatory characteristic of Chinese cinema. In Mandarin with English subtitles. (114 minutes)
BY TOM MEEK
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