The Guillotines

The lack of rip-roaring martial arts or even a half-decent storyline will leave genre aficionados feeling short-changed.

The plot is of little importance - the spectacular action and gorgeous landscapes and costumes are what matter.

The blades fly as do the heads, but the movie remains disappointingly aground.

The Guillotines expends most of its energy in its first 30 minutes, leaving the audience with roughly 90 minutes of soapy Qing Dynasty fan fiction.

Despite the multitude of cinematic tricks the prolific Andrew Lau has up his sleeve, the film is a disappointingly rote entry in the wuxia pantheon.

A historical action epic set during the Qing dynasty that amounts to a bait-and-switch for wuxia fans stoked for steel-meets-flesh mayhem.

This is an action movie with very little action, a period piece with very little history, and the story of brothers and betrayal with very little earnest emotion.

Any topical relevance for the material is compromised by a script that is woefully clumsy and melodramatic.

Although a bit too gory for me and difficult to follow at times, the film also boasts some gorgeous visuals as well as intriguing characters played by Ethan Juan and Xiaoming Huang.

[The Guillotines] offers a little of everything - action, drama, propaganda, romance - but spread frustratingly thin under a thick glossy sheen.