As a fan of Yeoh's films, I desperately felt I needed to see this film, I was impressed with the trailer but then it all led to disappointment when I saw the film. I was aware that the film was receiving bad reviews but when I saw it, it was not as bad as I thought it was but there were some major faults.
The use of incredible locations in the film was a plus, the story line sounded perfect for an adventure film and there was that wonderful combination of action, romance and comedy
I felt that one of the main flaws with the film was the ensemble of actors; though they do look good in their roles, the way they portrayed their characters was rather poor.
Yeoh's performance was not of a satisfactory level, but provided she got to use some martial arts in the film, I was happy.
Ben Chaplin, who plays Eric,provides most of the comic relief for the film, particularly when he attempts to sing a love song in Mandarin Chinese but forgets the words half way through the song. I am still wondering whether the character Bob was even meant to be funny at all as he was just pathetic throughout the film.
Brandon Chang and Margaret Wang who play Lily and Tong are newcomers, of all the actors in the film, their performances were the most disappointing; my reason is mainly that when they spoke, it sounded as if they were on a "lets talk English programme", they were expressionless and bland with their acting.
Another flaw was the use of special effects in the film, particularly in the climax that takes place in the burning cave, at the beginning of the scene, the flames looked real, but whoever was in charge of the cinematography made a huge mistake after applying the flames because the fire looked incredibly fake afterwards as well as a list of other faults concerning the CGI.
Despite the faults outweighing the good points, I did enjoy the film, but it was merely average.