The Warlords

Set during the upheaval of mid-nineteenth-century China, The Warlords follows a general who loses his entire army in battle and is saved by a woman and two bandit leaders. The three men swear blood brotherhood, pledging to fight side by side and protect one another. Their aim is to end the civil war and bring peace to a country torn apart, but the path there demands brutal battles and impossible choices, including sacrificing thousands to save far more. As their alliance grows into an army, loyalty and ambition pull against each other.

The film is directed by Peter Chan, whose earlier work includes Comrades, Almost a Love Story and The Love Letter, and by Raymond Yip Wai-Man, and it sits fourth in Chan's filmography. The screenplay is by Tin-Nam Chun, Jojo Hui Yuet-Chun and James Yuen Sai-Sang. Jet Li plays General Pang Qingyun, with Andy Lau as Zhao Er-Hu, Takeshi Kaneshiro as Jiang Wu-Yang and Xu Jinglei as Lian. Produced across Hong Kong, mainland China and Thailand on a budget of around 40 million US dollars, it was released in December 2007 and runs 126 minutes.

Reception was solid rather than uniform. On IMDb the film holds 7 out of 10 from roughly 29,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.8 from around 381 votes. A critics' rating of 6.2 from 53 reviews places it below the audience scores, suggesting viewers responded more warmly than reviewers did.