Han Geng's Guan Yu and Justin Cheung's Zhang Fei are unfortunately compromised by poor costuming and make-up that reduces them to be cosplayers. Louis Koo hams it up as Lü Bu in a performance completely dialed by eye glares and ends up coming off as a bland villain.

The rest of the cast is all over the place. At times, it feels like they're in a completely different movie. The scenes between Cao Cao and Liu Bei, who are shown as two sides of the same coin, are my favorite moments. Tony Yang's Liu Bei, the other MVP, delivers a nuanced performance and creates a fascinating dynamic with Wang Kai. Wang Kai plays Cao Cao as a proud scheming lonely visionary who wants to fix the world in his own way, providing a much-required gravitas to the film's scattered canvas. At other times, the story gets dramatic when it tells the origin of Cao Cao, who is played by Mainland actor Wang Kai in the film's most scene-stealing performance. Phillip Keung cameos as General Zhang Jiao and performs it as a shaman dressed like Big Bird from Sesame Street. Lam Suet's General Dong Zhuo's costume, decked out in a gold and black garb and darkened skin, looks too much like Judge Pao for it to be a coincidence. From beginning to end, I honestly couldn't tell if Dynasty Warriors was ever in full control of its tone. Wide shots of the armies gearing up for battle look like a screencap of a real-time strategy war game. Like in any hack-and-slash game, every hero has special moves where they can hit soldiers into the air and then unleash a lethal combo. When they fight, energy crackles around them. The heroes in Dynasty Warriors are demi-gods walking amongst humans with special abilities. Director Roy Chow Hin Yeung and his wife screenwriter Christine To Chi Long take an uber literal approach in adapting a video game. Armed with its big cast and visually stunning CGI action scenes, it plays like a string of video game cut scenes jam-packed with a lot of ham and a lot of cheese. Dynasty Warriors is a Hong Kong-produced video game film adaptation that never finds a firm tone and flip-flops between being unintentionally funny and tacky.

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