This has been on my mind for some years now.
Has anyone else noticed that Chinese wuxia/period movies made in the past few years seem to concentrate on only making beautiful costumes, set designs and scenary to the point of neglecting a good plot, characterisation and action choreography?
Two chief offenders are House of Flying Daggers and Red Cliff. These two were practically all eye candy. There are others but these come to mind first. They try to be artsy but they're not. I found myself putting down copies of Curse of the Golden Flower and The Promise at my local DVD store because it looks to be in the same vein as those films.
I know I'm going to cop a lot of flak for this, but even Hero was a bit overbearing and seemed to try way too hard to visually impress with all it's colours and slow motion. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was beautiful but still managed a good plot and action choreography.
It feels like after the large leap in quality of costume and set designs in Hollywood from films like LotR and other period movies (The Last Samurai, Troy, etc.) that Chinese cinema is trying to desperately catch up and prove it's just as good in those departments, to the detriment to the more important aspects of a film.
And is it me or is every second period movie about some genius strategist that appears out of seemingly nowhere to help a beleaguered kingdom or village?