Zhi qu wei hu shan 2014

Maggie Lee, Variety: This account of the People's Liberation Army's strategic ambush of a bandits' lair delivers sinewy battles and twisty espionage with a husky northern flavor. Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: Its slow-going opening stretch and assorted mawkish subplots might just be the price a viewer has to pay for the sight of Yang and Hawk slugging it out in a biplane as it careens down a seemingly endless escape tunnel ... Read more

Martin Tsai, Los Angeles Times: So when Tsui revises and redoes the climactic showdown for the sake of entertainment value, you wonder if the Hong Kong-based filmmaker writes off the whole thing as revisionist history written by victors. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, New York Times: With its fanfare score, the movie has a nationalistic, didactic flavor and a tiresome devotion to spectacle. Even the climax is staged two ways. Read more

Bruce Demara, Toronto Star: [It] has quite a lot to recommend it. But it also has a few glaring flaws that detract from it being stellar action fare. Read more

Simon Abrams, Village Voice: Proves disarmingly entertaining thanks to a Tsui specialty: spectacular fight scenes. Read more