Sorry, this movie sucks

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

I expected "a battle of wits" a great movie after seeing its introduction and actor lists. I went to movie theater to watch, but it absolutely made me disappointed.I think director want to descirbe different personality vividly, but there are so many illogical reactions. The unreasonable war is mentioned many times, so I'd to talk about the captain of Zhao, why would he agree to meet Ge Li at the isolated room? Is it the exhibition of brave? NO!! It's totally a stupid decision. A captain is responsible for the safety of armies, how could he put himself a dangerous zone??And the most ridiculous is soldiers lift the captain and run away...does it makes the episode funny?? I think it can just break the serious atmosphere of the battle, and it's really illogical, how dare are the soldiers to offend their captain? Isn't Zhao's army rule really strict?? Too many questions...

The one thing that can be said of this film is its utter bipolarity. Few films have been this bad when misstepped, and this good when right.Andy Lau turns in a solidly chivalric turn as a wandering warrior-philosopher who aids a small city-state in defending a large, powerful army. He earns the ire of the city-state's opportunistic and mean ruler at the same time, and the love of a beautiful cavalry captain. Sounds like all the ingredients are there but the resulting mix varied wildly in quality. Other than Lau, Korean superstar Ahn Sung Ki as the enemy General, and Wang Zhiwen as the mean little ruler, a lot of the supporting cast is seriously vapid. Nicky Wu as an archer prince is a dishwater-dull Legolas-wannabe, and Choi Si Won as a spoiled prince is equally bad. Fan Bing Bing as the love interest and cavalry captain is lain excruciating. And don't get me started on the poorly-written African character.The battle scenes are also poorly-filmed. I swear I have recorded better looking battle scenes using a game of "Rome: Total War". The sweeping vistas have moments of bad CGI, and some of the scene transitions, such as having a scene turn from live action to an oil-painting, or an up-front shot of thousands of bodies getting skewered by arrows: lack even the spectacle to be tragic in their artificiality.And for a film that is about a Battle of Wits, it commits the unpardonable sin of resolving itself with a Deus Ex Machina I shall not reveal here.Yet, the film is interspersed with moments of rugged beauty and palpable tension, thrills and stoicism, heroism and epic grandeur, that make one wonder how a film that got so much right, could also get so much wrong.This is a movie I cannot really recommend, or not recommend in any sense. Watch at your own discretion.

This movie is based on comic or in Asia popular with name manga. So the time setting, all the cast in this movie is just fiction. But maybe, the author just inspired from great Chinnese history. Especially with a hero name Zhuge Liang. Why? Because there's a lot of common between Zhuge Liang and main cast in this movie Ge Li. Ge Li is a wonderful hero that can beat thousands of enemy troops with only 400 hundred soldiers. He knows exactly how to defend a city and he knows how to build o fortress less than a week. Maybe he knows all war strategies and tactics. But he also has one little problem, he is to idealistic. Maybe what happen in the movie is also happen in our present life today. No one could really good to everybody. Good for who? No one could express his universal love just like bible said. When a man tried to do that, everybody around him will looking for a way to make him fall. That's all. I love the movie.

The first thing to be gotten "out-of-the-way" when watching "Battle of Wits" is the somewhat dubious production values (camera-work, lighting, editing,etc.), resembling more of a TV-movie than a "Hollywood epic"-- but its story/ material is EXCELLENT! It is essentially an "idea/ issue" movie-- the characterization is one-dimensional and the events just serve as "platforms" for ideas/ issues of Mozi philosophy. And it is this very approach which will annoy some viewers and delight others.Like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-- whose success give investors the confidence to finance "Battle of Wits"-- people are going to have problems the "genre-bending" nature of this movie.... Historical "fantasy" film? Philosophical "war" movie? It attempts various "movie" moments-- e.g. the rather obvious CGI sequence of the first full-on assault which, unlike the beautiful but stupid sequence in Hero, shows a "full" army and what each section of the army is doing. Yet it refuses to dwell on gratuitous or "entertaining" imagery.But thanks to the director, the realistic "mood" set in the movie is enough to make the audience winced even when the gory scenes are NOT shown-- you are taken "into" the warfare where there is a rather disturbingly level of groaning. And the bodies and burials, the defenders are always taking people out of the city for burial.While some may complain about its "flow" or "completeness" because it is based on a 11-volume Japanese manga (which in turn is based on a Japanese novel), all the events in the movie are "explicable" (even historically "inspired")-- although they are not that well "depicted/ edited"... if only they had better special effects directors and action choreographers (& lots more $).True to the sign of the times, "Battle of Wits" is:1) a SNAFU (anti-)war movie. That is "Situation Normal- All F**ked Up"-- or everything which can go wrong will go wrong. The tagline of the movie is "100,000 vs 5,000" I think, so it's not too much of a spoiler to point out that the morale or "spirit" of the defenders is so low that it is always "cracking up". OTOH, the morale or "spirit" of the invaders is so high that they treat it as a game and "crack up" whenever something unexpected happens.2) a "Casualties of War" movie. Those being the times of "maiming" arrows & fire, rather than "instant-kill" bullets and bombs, everyone who is shot, hurt or dying screams in pain and cries out for help (enslaving rather than killing POW was the rule in those times-- which First Emperor Qin happily ignored). So unlike Hero or even Lord of the The Rings where the arrow volleys are just beautiful to look at, the "realistic" mood set by "Battle of Wits" makes the crossfire "ugly".3) a "Psych-war" movie.Throughout the movie, people are always messing around with other people's heads-- even when they are not sure what he is doing (yes, Psych-war involves "lying", err, I mean "propaganda"). So there's a lot of talking (& action) which seems to goes "nowhere" if you don't see psychological significance.ADVICE: don't be late and don't watch it when you're tired (2 hours 15 mins) because:i) the narrative pace is almost relentless (it slows down only towards the end), and many things are "explained" with just one line or one shot-- here's hoping someone will invest and make a detailed and better paced TV series out of the source material, or even a sequelii) it is definitely NOT made for "international audiences"-- the director does NOT bother to explain the historical, cultural or philosophical background and the minimal budget means that many sequences are very "tightly" edited. But that also explains why the Chinese (Mainland, HK & Taiwan) are loving it (more so than Zhang Yimou's *cough* "epics").iii) Mozi philosophy is full of controversies (which are not "resolved" in the movie)-- many characters in the movie get struggle with the Mozi philosophy and suffer for it, because practising the Mozi philosophy would require forsaking almost everything else (affection, glory and riches).