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Warriors of Heaven and Earth
Sony Pictures Classics

Warriors of Heaven and Earth reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 54 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
6.5 out of 10
based on 15 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 2 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for violence

Starring Jiang Wen, Kiichi Nakai, Wang Xueqi, Zhao Wei, Hasi Bagen, He Tao, Harrison Liu, and Wang Deshun

In the tradition of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, Warriors of Heaven and Earth weaves a thread of battle, comradeship and honor. Set in the ferocious Gobi desert, the story follows two first-class warriors and master swordsmen. (Sony Pictures Classics)


GENRE(S): Action  |  Adventure  |  Drama  |  Foreign  
WRITTEN BY: He Ping
Zhang Rui
 
DIRECTED BY: He Ping  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: December 7, 2004 
Theatrical: September 3, 2004 
RUNNING TIME: 114 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: China / Hong Kong 
LANGUAGE(S): Mandarin (with English subtitles) 

Original title "Tian di ying xiong"

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

70
The Hollywood Reporter Andrew Sun
A not particularly satisfying ending that involves silly CG effects. On the other hand, the acting is uniformly compelling, the fight sequences are energetic, and, as character drama, the material is especially enthralling.
Read Full Review
70
Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
May be a period piece but there's nothing antiquated about it except an overly populated, initially hard-to-follow plot.
Read Full Review
67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
The film plays like a Hollywood-influenced Japanese samurai movie, though nothing as subtle as Kurosawa's best, and with white subtitles that often are hard to read against the white of the Gobi.
Read Full Review
63
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
More of a sand-and-noodles western set in the Far East.
Read Full Review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
The spaghetti western may be dead, but the noodle eastern looks to be alive and well.
Read Full Review
63
New York Post V.A. Musetto
Falters when it gets involved with supernatural gobbledygook.
Read Full Review
63
New York Daily News Jami Bernard
A magnificent looking and occasionally very silly Chinese Western.
Read Full Review
60
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Thoroughly old-fashioned entertainment.
Read Full Review
60
The New York Times Ned Martel
The best case for Warriors is its cinematic time travels and its peek into the natural wildness of a long-closed countryside.
Read Full Review
50
The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
In spite of the unavoidable disappointment that comes from raised expectations (and lowered elevations), it's clumsy storytelling that ultimately keeps Warriors grounded.
Read Full Review
50
San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson
Eminently watchable, with enough majestic vistas and heroic derring-do to get by. It could have been so much more.
Read Full Review
50
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Impressively filmed but not dramatic enough to justify its length.
Read Full Review
50
Variety Derek Elley
A handsome although dramatically muddled Noodle Western.
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50
Village Voice Mark Holcomb
Comfortably familiar. It lacks the tension between grandeur and intimacy that characterizes the films it apes.
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50
LA Weekly David Chute
The buildup is so compelling in this "Chinese Western" by He Ping (Swordsman in Double Flag Town) that its thunderous anticlimax of an ending can almost be forgiven. Almost.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 6.5 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

M(ichael) B. gave it a7:
Sure, Director He Ping borrows liberally from John Ford, Howard Hwks, Akira Kurosawa, and Steven Spielberb, but the setting, the mostly barren middle stretch of the Silk Road, is magnificent. The story is rather predictable, but done with great style, except the ending, which feels truncated. I was fascinated by the political subtext: the crime of "Lie the Butcher" is essentially the same as that of Zhao Ziyang (the recently deceased former head of the Communist Party who became an outcast when he opposed the massacre in Tien An Min Square), yet, after many years, Li manages to demonstrate his loyalty and his worth.

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