Tin Lung Baat Bou, internationally known as Sakra, goes back to Hong Kong's wu xia trademarks that have marked the art of cinema between the late eighties and early years of the new millennium. References to movies such as A Chinese Ghost Story, Once Upon a Time in China, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero and House of Flying Daggers can be observed throughout this film by genre fans. While this movie is a sincere homage to these influential classics, it however never quite reaches their memorable quality.
The story is rather interesting. Kiu Fung is a child abandoned by his unknown parents who grows up in a remote farming community and is taken precious care of by his loving adoptive parents. He learns the art of Shaolin, becomes an outstanding martial artist and rises the ranks to become the leader of a martial arts organization. Things turn sour when Kiu Fung is accused of several murders he hasn't committed and is now tracked down by former friends, partners and supporters. The protagonist goes on an epic journey to clear his name and find the true culprits with the help of beautiful servant and thief Azhu.
On the positive side, this film is based upon the novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils by Jin Yong and adapts the source material's twisted story line and profound characters. The cinematography is stunning with calm, precise and swift camera work that avoids shaky sections, rapid movements and nervous cuts. The settings vary from poor farms over wild steppes to elegant palaces that deserve to be admired on the big screen.
On the negative side, the action scenes are exaggerated to a point that they become unintentionally funny. Exaggeration has always been an important element of wu xia cinema but this idea is pushed to new extremes right from the opening fighting scene that is completely blown out of proportions and doesn't suit the movie's overall gritty, serious and realistic tone at all. This film is filled with so many plot twists, diversified characters and changes of location that the directors could have made an entire television series out of these elements but instead opted for a movie of two hours and ten minutes that simply feels overloaded and tough to digest. The film's scenes during and even after the credits indicate a potential sequel as more new questions are being asked than old questions are being answered. If you don't want to feel obligated to follow a new epic franchise, you should not watch this movie at all.
At the end of the day, Tin Lung Baat Bou, better known as Sakra around the world, is an entertaining experience for fans of period martial arts films. The visual effects, epic soundtrack, wonderful settings, tense plot and interesting characters should keep most viewers hooked from start to finish. However, some action scenes are even more exaggerated than the material of some shallow contemporary superhero flicks, the film feels overloaded with promising ideas that don't give it any air to breathe and most questions aren't even answered when this film eventually ends. To be fair, genre fans should appreciate a very decent wu xia movie but potential new or even occasional fans should stick to the classics mentioned in the introduction first before being able to fully appreciate this new movie.
