[Review] Sakra (3.5/10)

 

Title - Sakra
Production - Plus Entertainment, Wishart Media, etc.
Starring - Donnie Yen, Eddie Cheung, Yase Liu, Kara Wai, Wu Yue
Writer - ?
Director - Donnie Yen, Kam Ka Wai
Release - 19 January 2023

I had a bit of free time and decided to watch Sakra, just because it's Donnie Yen in a Wuxia film (how can it go wrong when you put those two elements together?), plus it's almost Chinese New Year so I was in the mood. 

I fully regret this decision as it's 2 hours I'll never see again. This was a movie I almost walked out of, but like I said, I had a bit of time.

Adapted from the famed Jin Yong's Wuxia story, "Tin Long Bat Pou", a.k.a. "Demi-Gods And Semi-Devils"; I never really got into this super popular title as it was a little before my time, so I don't know how much was adapted into the movie. Also, I have no idea why the English title is Sakra.

But one thing was clear, it was adapted very poorly. We would never know how much of the direction came from Yen himself as a first-time director, and how much came from his co-director Kam. Hence, we don't know who's exactly to blame here.

First, the action sequences were sub-par in today's standards. Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings had better fight scenes than anything we've seen here. Not much details were choreographed into the fights for the cinematographer to capture, and most of the effects were making characters fly across the screen beautifully, rather than showing epic fight scenes. 

I will say that when characters fly with qinggong, these were actually the best effects I have ever seen which, in the very beginning, gave me a lot of joy. The first big fight scene between Yen and a flaming fist character was the best and really brought out those Wuxia stories to life. 

But then, the movie slowed down to a crawl throughout the whole movie right until the end, because the fights were boring to watch and the story was too long.

There were too many characters, even up until the final 30 minutes we were still introduced to new characters. 

I feel like this movie should have been the third of a trilogy. What we needed was proper set up because I didn't care for who the Beggars Clan were, the leaders were very quickly introduced and then disappeared until somewhere in the second act, and then there was this ridiculous long sequence of Yen trying to convince us audience he's falling in love with a female character that could pass as a teenager. Her first scene was also very confusing as she was seen together with the antagonist but later on never came up again.

Also, as a leader of a clan that was called the Beggars Clan, Yen's cheek sure looked like he had no problems finding food. He looks like he's at that age where he could easily bloat up.

Too much stories were cramped into the wrong places, and in a world of franchises and trilogies and shared cinematic universes, I am really surprised Hong Kong did not want to milk this.