Sakra

Big theatrics and fancy wirework don’t quite hide the shoddy plot in Donnie Yen’s enjoyable action adventure.

“Qiao Feng, you must die for the sake of the martial arts world!”

Based on one of the stories in the epic novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils by Jin Yong, Sakra is set during a tumultuous time in China’s history, with the country split into several factions. The Song dynasty is at war with the Liao dynasty, and its Khitan people.

Qiao Feng (Donnie Yen) is a Khitan by birth, but whose parents were killed when he was a baby. Raised by foster parents and also by the legendary Beggars’ Gang as a Song dynasty subject, Qiao grows to become a hero to his gang. Things take a turn when he is framed for the murder of the gang’s vice master Ma and outed as a Khitan. He flees, returning home to his foster parents only to find they’ve also been killed. He once again flees, hoping to find peace with his old shaolin master, who has also been killed.

In the first thirty minutes Qiao is hilariously framed for the murder of four separate people and his woes just keep on coming. He befriends and eventually falls in love with a young woman and expert mask-maker Azhu (Chen Yuqi), injuring her by accident and together they aim to solve the mystery that’s befallen our hero. What’s fun about this film is just how much of a chump Qiao is shown to be in almost every respect. He can fight, sure, but he’s so frequently tricked, lied to, framed and betrayed that comes off as a bit of a dimwit. Thankfully, Yen’s innate charm and the character’s strong code of honour allow the audience to retain respect enough for him to stay on as our hero.

Sakra is a silly film, but it’s also a lot of a fun. The action is as over the top as you would want for the genre, and the story is absolutely loaded with soap opera dramatics. It’s as perfectly stupid as anyone might expect, and when it isn’t trying to tell too many things at once actually has an engaging story. Its biggest issue might be that it has just way too much story to tell, and even in its crowded, overstuffed 130 minutes it isn’t able to tell it all that well.

Watching Sakra made me think of the international cut of Red Cliff, which saw both halves of the epic edited down into a single overstuffed movie. Sakra would have worked just fine as two films, and there’s even a perfect spot where it could have split, around 90 minutes in. There’s scope for sequel – two mid credits sequences suggest this will be a bigger series of films – so there really was space for more than one film. Getting to know Qiao and his comrades is so important, especially when much of the drama hinges on characters’ relationships to one another.

There’s a heavy scene near the halfway point where Qiao drinks with his former brothers, including his old teachers, who lament his being a killer. They regret having to kill him, but in order to save Azhu from an injury I’m pretty he caused, Qiao agrees to give his life for her (but not without a fight, I guess). The scene is strong but undermined by the fact that we don’t really know any of the characters there. The performances are good enough at selling the strength of the bonds between everyone, and the music certainly help, but you can’t help but feel like you’ve walked into the final act of an entirely different film.

Sakra is a film that simultaneously feels like it has too much going on and not nearly enough – and this might be down to its 6 credited screenwriters. But thanks to wonderful actors (notably Grace Wong as Ma’s widow Kang Min, who rocks every scene she’s in and is easily the best character in the film) and Donnie Yen’s strong directorial skills it remains a decent watch. His eye for mood and atmosphere is excellent here, and the sets more often than not look really good. There’s a tendency in wuxia films to go over the top in design, but Yen keeps things realistic enough, and allows the fantastical action to transcend that reality. It’s all good stuff, if only the plot wasn’t so all over the place. If they come out with an extended cut, or the sequels offer more context to what was happening, it would be definitely worth recommending more.

Verdict: Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but a good time nonetheless, Sakra is a less-than-epic adaptation that might hold up, but its sequels have some serious heavy lifting to do.

Overall entertainment: 6.5/10
Violence: 5/10
Sex: 0/10
Wuxia action: 7/10
Dramatics: 6/10
Face masks: It’s amazing just how many plot points rely on Azhu making these on the fly, huh
Hero Gathering Manor: It’s the manor where heroes gather, duh
Murong: I just plum forgot about him. You will too.


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Sakra (2023)
Also known as: 天龙八部之乔峰传
Cantonese, Mandarin

Director: Donnie Yen
Writers: Sheng Lingzhi, Zhu Wei, He Ben, Chen Li, Shen Lejing, Xu Yifan, Yin Jong (novel)

CAST

Donnie Yen – Qiao Feng
Chen Yuqi – Azhu
Cya Liu – Azi
Kara Wai – Xingzhu
Wu Yue – Murong Fu
Eddie Cheung – Duan Zhengchun
Grace Wong – Kang Min
Du Yuming – Bai Shijing
Ray Lui – Murong Bo