Chinese movies of this type are very appealing. This one fits in with the likes of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (this worlds best movie), "House Of Flying Daggers" and "Hero". It doesn't quite achieve the same level of greatness, but is surely in the same spirit.So the story is touching, and in a way that these movies do better than any other. It's not quite developed enough though. In fact, it feels like the fight-scenes had priority over the story. Had the priority (between story and fight-scenes) been shifted the other way around, I think this movie might have been top-league.When you've seen blood splatter out the mouth of some poor kungfu-blasted victim for the umpteenth time it gets to be a bit of a cliché. The fight-scenes weren't badly done, there was just way too much of it.The movie feels a bit rushed, like there perhaps wasn't enough time to finish it properly. A bit like "hurry up, we haven't got all day, just wrap it up as it is and hope nobody will notice the slack", and "don't worry if it's half-finished, we'll just throw in another fight-scene and call it a day". That detracted quite a bit. I wouldn't go so far as to say it had the Hollywood mass-production feel to it, but neither did it achieve the true-art feeling that the 3 master-pieces I mention at the top has.Still, it is a moving film that did indeed manage to pull on the heart-strings. But it just could have been better.

This movie is for those 15 and older. Younger teens may not be able to follow all that is going on. True legend has lots of action. I always am disappointed in a non-English film. I am glad of the subtitles though. The movie is very picturesque and like many Chinese subject films, has great color. It is pleasurable to watch. Always the constant battle between good and evil. Always the conflict of good having the necessary desire to quench evil at great personal cost. Timeless themes. Some of the knife throwing seems a little hokey, but I suppose that everything has to be greater than life. This film would make a good guys night out movie. Teenage gals might enjoy it as well for a non-romantic sleepover movie. I give it four thumbs up.

I'll freely admit I'm not a lover of martial arts movies, so this movie isn't geared towards me. But with a protagonist this bad, it lost all chance of enjoyment. I've never seen a character waste so many dramatic turn-arounds in my life.While many parts of the movie are beautiful and visually attractive, the movie spends so long focusing on the plot that it really should have spent some time developing likable characters and an interesting plot. The main story ends about 75% of the way through, and then it just kind of dribbles on. And the ending ... it makes less sense than the rest of the movie.Never. Again.

I am very much disappointed in the movie. It started off with so much promise then got progressively worse until the end where it felt like I was watching a totally different movie.The movie can be divided into 3 parts. The 1st part is rather good, it reminded me of the 70-80s style martial art movies. The fighting was good although the bad guy seemed over done.It started going bad for me in the middle part where our hero is training to fight the bad guy again. HORRIBLE CG work, I mean really bad. Also repetitive and add to that not very good martial arts. It also left me confused as to ...is it real or only in his head. The main plot line is concluded in the middle section. Baddie dies but a phyricc victory as hero's wife dies as well. Hero becomes a drunk which brings us to...Part 3. I guess this is where it shows him as the mythical drunken beggar. Problem is it just shows him as a weak pathetic drunk until he has to fight the whitemen ala FEARLESS style. Basically the movie looked like it jumped very far ahead in time. The "feel" and the look of the movie totally changed. It went from old time china to suddenly westerners walking around everywhere and participating in fights. The fight scenes were long and formulaic, westerners ganging up and cheating etc. The guy gets drunk and throws out some break dancing moves.For me the movie was too disjointed, add very bad CG and fights and I have to say give this a miss. Watch fearless instead or one of the drunken master movies.