It’s been a while since we last watched a film by Zhang Yimou especially since we skipped the badly reviewed The Great Wall. I had no great expectations for this, thinking that it should at least be beautiful. The visuals however turned out to be somewhat restrained being more focused on character-driven conflict and though the results are predictably, it’s not as bad as I feared.

Commander Yu is the leader of the military forces of the kingdom of Pei and he ardently wishes to challenge the neighboring kingdom to seek the return of the province of Jing that was lost some time ago. The king of Pei however wishes for peace as he believes they will lose if war should break out. He is forced to dismiss the Commander when the latter personally goes to challenge General Yang who now guards the province in defiance of his orders. However it is revealed that the Commander that everyone knows is actually a double, raised and trained in secret by the real one who has prematurely aged due to wounds suffered in the previous fight against General Yang. He has an intricate strategy to regain the lost province and trains his double in a special technique to beat Yang’s use of the guandao. His wife is in on the secret but becomes sympathetic towards the double.

Despite the artsy tone and swirling visuals, this is very much a commercial action movie aimed at the mainstream market and should be judged as such. Even with all the intrigue going on, everything is laid out clearly for the audience and there’s no ambiguity at all which might not match the film’s title but makes it easy to watch. In lesser hands, the obviousness of the plot would perhaps be irritating but Zhang sells it well and the performances are compelling. Deng Chao who plays both the real Commander and his double look and most importantly behave so differently as the two characters that at first glance they seem like different actors. I like that there are multiple layers of intent and deception even if it’s not terribly sophisticated.

The visuals at least match the film’s themes with a rain-drenched look that is plainly meant to evoke Chinese calligraphy. Some shots really are quite beautiful and yet Zhang is astute enough not to overdo it such that it becomes fantastical. The martial arts have unique and cool esthetics even if they’re not terribly practical. All in all, I don’t consider this to be a serious effort as you can do much more with the concept of doubles as many other films have shown. Still this isn’t anything to be ashamed of either and it’s good enough for entertainment purposes.