Coming from a Chinese background, there's a lot more wrong with the movie from a Chinese perspective than an American's view of the movie. This movie is terrible. Chen Kaige, a renowned director in China that has created numerous wonderful films, has gone off the deep end with this one. Yes, this film is certainly one of the most artistic of its time. However, that's about all it has going for it. The cast of characters, fairly well known in Asia, was a poor choice for a Mandarin film. The Mandarin spoken by Hiroyuki Sanada is utterly HORRIBLE (strongly resemblant of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"). I have a strong background in Mandarin, and I couldn't understand 75% of anything that came out of his mouth. Even my natively Chinese parents could barely understand his dialogue. The dialogue would have probably been much better delivered had it been in Japanese with Chinese subtitles. That brings me to the point of the plot, which is so confusing it hurts your brain, and not in a good way(as in Saw, Saw II). It would take at least 5 viewings of this film to understand the plot, and if someone actually bothered to submit themselves to such torture, they would realize that the plot was virtually inexistent and thin in the first place. Watch Zhang Yimou's works, such as "Hero" if you want to get your Wu Xia fix. Or, if you are dying for a new film, try another of Zhang Yimou's works, "Riding Alone For Thousands of Miles". But don't watch this unless you want to come out with a death wish or you've been toking up. Sure colors are pretty, but they'll fade with time.