Stars: Koichi Sato, Toshiyuki Nishida, Tsunehiko Watase, Anna Nakagawa. "How dare you give me horse to eat? I'm a Princess!" says the love interest in this, at times unintentionally funny, Chinese-Japanese co-produced action epic. After an arid voiceover offers historical background on the "silk road" trade route of 11th-century China, the film gets down to business with battles galore. In the opening fight, Xingte, a young scholar, is taken captive and pressed into service by an illiterate mercenary general. The general sends Xingte away for more schooling, and Xingte returns three years later to find his beloved Princess unhappily engaged to a powerful Prince. When the Princess dives a couple of hundred feet off the castle ramparts straight into the dirt, the enraged Xingte and his general (who also secretly loved the Princess) vow to take their revenge on the power-hungry Prince. The dubbed version is, as might be expected, pretty bad, with American voices a poor match for the Far Eastern actors. But the subtitled version cannot improve the cheesy camerawork (endless quick zooms and quick pullbacks, reminiscent of TV action series from the 70s) and weird soundtrack (sections of which sound as if it were composed by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass). A dud, all around. Audience: Fans of badly dubbed foreign films.
The Silk Road
Historical action, Vidmark Entertainment, in Japanese w/English subtitles (also available dubbed), 1987, color, 99 min., $89.95, rated: PG-13 Video Movies
The Silk Road
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