Sakra 天龍八部之喬峯傳 (2023)

Directed by Donnie Yen
Based on Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils by Jin Yong
Produced by Donnie Yen & Wong Jing
Starring Donnie Yen, Chen Yuqi, Cya Liu, Wu Yue
Cinematography Chan Chi-ying
Edited by Li Ka-wing

Sakra is a 2023 wuxia film directed by Donnie Yen, who also co-produced the film with Wong Jing. It is adapted from the wuxia novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils written by Jin Yong. The film stars Donnie Yen, Chen Yuqi, and Cya Liu. The film will be released in OTT platforms in China at 2023 Chinese New Year. It will also be released in theatres in Malaysia on 16 January 2023.

(Excerpt from Wikipedia)

This post has been edited by Mov_freak: Jan 19 2023, 10:33 PM

Sakra 天龍八部之喬峯傳 (2023)

I can think of at least 4 TV series and two movies based of this book.

Donnie Yen wears many hats in this one.

I have to say that the first fight scene is AMAZING!!!

Breathtaking really.

I have to mainly agree with the casting.

Because Donnie Yen is involved, the fighting scenes are a gamut of good to FREAKING AMAZING.

This is based on a well loved book.

This is where the movie stumble....

Many a people had tried to bring this book into a movie.

Namely

The Battle Wizard (1977) by Shaw Brothers the biggest Chinese cinema producers at the time. It was... funky. The emphasis is place on kungfu special effects instead of getting all the story into a movie.

Dragon Chronicles: The Maidens of Heavenly Mountain (1994) that was very ambitious and had Jackie Chan and Stephen Chow signed on for part 2 and 3 and have to add the movie was SOOOOOOOOOO far removed from the source material, movie goers avoided the movie like the plague (did not make money) causing the 2nd and 3rd movie to be scrapped.

So what I am trying to state here is that many a people had tried and not succeed to adapt this book to a movie.

The books concentrated on 3 main characters that was quite interwoven (story wise) to one another.

Isolating to only one character.... did not do the movie any favours.

The hardest sell is that movie wants to have an open mind about the artistic license it took with the story yet, if you are not familiar with the original story, you may not understand what had happened!!!

A catch 22 indeed.

Looking at the ending, they are hoping this does well do that sequels (about the other two characters) can be made.

We shall see if this movie does enough at the box office to justify that

My Two Sen

This post has been edited by Mov_freak: Jan 17 2023, 01:31 PM

To be fair, I think the first two acts were decent, it was in the third act, that he had to tie everything together that things got a little hairy...

That is one of the hairy moments I had expressed... (eg, the jade staff was inconveniently unavailable to him at that moment and he needed a weapon). Do understand that when he did use Subdue Dragon Palm and Beat The Dog Staff (please do not crucify my translation), it was quite impressive.

This post has been edited by Mov_freak: Jan 17 2023, 03:56 PM

Really boils down to

1) If you are Donnie Yen's fan
2) If you enjoy fights scenes (3 major fight scenes only)

John Wick 4.... Please don't suck. PLEASE DON'T SUCK!!!