If you reside in the real world, then this movie will strike you as naive, crude, and bigoted. Credit should be given for the attempt to set the movie outside of China, but the snarky Europeans hired to play Americans, a bunch of undersized frenchmen no doubt ;'), and the heavy handed evil Americans routine, departs from realism pretty quickly.

Halfway through, the plot mutates into the martial-arts as magic universe, and though a lot of work is put into CGI effects, there is nothing here for anyone who hasn't been living in a cave for the last decade to write home about.

We also get a dose of infantile romantic complications that would embarrass Aaron Spelling, some really cheesy music, and generally lame melodramatic scenes.

My favorite, an inexplicable fastcut sequence from several angles of Hero standing in a burning building holding Jade as she dies, the music tracks dramatically with the cuts, is he trapped? ...will he die? Nope he just walks out a second later. What the...?

The plot tumbles on with a Ninja vs Chinese subplot, and then for some reason climaxes with a Chinese revolt against the 'Racist men fom the Klu Klux Klan' who run a mine where Chinese workers are oppressed. Someone's been carping their history from 'The Peoples History of the US' it seems.

If I had to classify this movie I'd use Sword and Sorcery with too much dialogue and dialectic.