Yang Zirong disguises himself as a bandit to infiltrate and destroy a bandit group. He joins hands with a hostage, and together, they fight against the warlord, Hawk.
[It] has quite a lot to recommend it. But it also has a few glaring flaws that detract from it being stellar action fare.
– Bruce Demara,
Toronto Star,
8 Jan 2015
rotten:
With its fanfare score, the movie has a nationalistic, didactic flavor and a tiresome devotion to spectacle. Even the climax is staged two ways.
– Ben Kenigsberg,
New York Times,
4 Jan 2015
fresh:
Its slow-going opening stretch and assorted mawkish subplots might just be the price a viewer has to pay for the sight of Yang and Hawk slugging it out in a biplane as it careens down a seemingly endless escape tunnel ...
– Ignatiy Vishnevetsky,
AV Club,
2 Jan 2015
fresh:
This account of the People's Liberation Army's strategic ambush of a bandits' lair delivers sinewy battles and twisty espionage with a husky northern flavor.
– Maggie Lee,
Variety,
1 Jan 2015
rotten:
So when Tsui revises and redoes the climactic showdown for the sake of entertainment value, you wonder if the Hong Kong-based filmmaker writes off the whole thing as revisionist history written by victors.