For the first 45 minutes, I was debating whether or not to turn The Heroic Trio off. I came to the film via Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and, wary that many purists have called CTHD diluted Hong Kong wire-fu, I thought that a real one might be quite interesting. It was, but it wasn't entirely successful. It isn't nearly as good as CTHD. Go ahead and accuse me of being a Westerner. I know I am.
The main problem with THT is the editing. I assume these films are made fast and that they are quickly edited. And I'm sure fans care less about the story than the action. The editing here is so choppy that I was always racing to catch up with the film. It took me a long time to figure out the relationships between characters, and a lot of things still didn't make much sense to me.
Even if the action scenes are supposed to be where the filmmakers invest all their interest, most of the action scenes are just as poorly edited as the rest. In the old dancing musicals of Astaire and Rogers, the directors made it their point to show the entire scene, so you could see the dancers and what they are doing. The same ought to go for these types of movies. That's certainly what they were thinking in CTHD: there may be cuts, but there are long periods where you watch the actors do their stuff. In THT, they cut almost every time someone draws a weapon or kicks. One of the most effective shots in CTHD was when Jade Fox tossed that round blade at the old man's forehead. We see it travel from Fox's hand straight into the man's forehead without a cut. I heard the audience shout "OUCH!!!" You'll find nothing that good here. At least the action sequences get better in this respect as the film progresses. The final battle scene is a lot of fun and very exciting. 6/10
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