Solemplex
To me, this movie is perfection.
Comwayon
A Disappointing Continuation
TrueHello
Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
Rich Wright
Sssooo what can I say about this then?! Well, there's a lot of men with their shirts off... if you like that sort of thing. And an old guy doing a ponderous narration... could someone kill him now, please? Some battle scenes that feel more like video game sequences, much tedious talk which accomplishes nothing for the audience or the plot, and a finale which is almost poetic in it's stupidity.Tell me: If you're the leader of two armies, and you've just won the last battle with your troops closing in an the last stragglers on the enemy side... would you stand A FEW YARDS AWAY with your back turned from the few that remain of the opposition's forces... allowing yourself to be taken hostage? Then when you get yourself killed by them, would anyone with a half a brain regard it as a 'noble sacrifice'? Nope... they'd have been crushed by your men regardless. All you've done is lay down your life... FOR NOTHING. Fool.Of course, this film doesn't have the smarts to see that... in fact, If it was a person, they'd need help getting dressed in the morning and remembering their own name (So, which is it: The Malay Chronicles or Clash Of Empires?) Basically, I LIKE watching movies I've never heard of. Supporting independent cinema... ya know what I mean? But I've seen MORE than my fair share of rubbish recently following that policy... so for the rest of the month, I'm sticking to more mainstream productions. Maybe something starring Tom Cruise. You see how desperate I am now? 3/10
TheLittleSongbird
Clash of Empires is not an irredeemable movie in any way, the scenery was quite nice, a couple of the fight sequences are edge-of-your-seat quality, there is a good lead performance and the princess is simply beautiful. For those redeeming qualities however there are a lot of things that Clash of Empires doesn't do well. The movie can have a frenzied look to it, and the rushed and underexplained story(just where did the romance come from?) is a further indication of Clash of Empires being done in haste. The dialogue is very stilted and sometimes incomprehensible, while the special effects apart from some average-at-best ones at the start are very cheaply rendered. There are no characters to root for, they are almost comic-book-like in quality, the music is generic, the direction is of the kind that has heart and passion at least but not the skill and the acting apart from the lead is vapid and going-through-the-motions feeling.All in all, Clash of Empires is very poorly done stuff but it definitely could have been much worse. 3/10 Bethany Cox
sweed79
I tried to watch this movie to see if it is worth the positive coverage that the Malaysian media have given during its preview. But to my disappointment I left the cinema in the middle of the showing. The acting, the props, the CGI was not to the standard where we can say that it is an epic story. At the beginning of the story, I was so annoyed at the narration. The narrator tried so hard trying not to choke on his on voice to make that 'old man' sound. And eventually the storyline become dull and tasteless. At one scene during the battle, there was a fierce storm and the fight scene was intense, but I was surprised to see that the coconut trees at the background were not even moving. If the Malay warriors were still alive they will certainly not approve the efforts the film makers trying to portray about their lives. But again, what can I expect from the KRU productions.
solidsnakeckw
A Malaysian action film based on real history about Langkasuka, sounds great. It's been a while now since the last Malaysian high budget movie (Puteri Gunung Ledang) came out, and to my surprise, this movie was executed really well. The fighting was very intense and the movement is comparable to some Thailand martial art movie. There are also some funny moment between the Chinese Admiral, Marcus and Merong. Of everything the movie had to offer, the music is the best, as it was really good and did a lot to make the already intense scene much more impressive. The CGI in this movie is also very good, but for some reason had a huge quality drop in last part when depicting Sultan Mudzaffar Shah walking towards the harbour.Also, the story was a bit rush. For example, they didn't explain about the relationship between Embok and Merong, then all of the sudden, the narrator (the Sultan) came out and said that Embok was pregnant with Merong's baby. IMHO, this should be make into a trilogy to explain the full story thoroughly.And what is wrong with speaking proper English? Why is there so many broken English in this movie? You see, games like God of War depicted ancient Greece, but with characters speaking proper English, and I didn't see any problem with it, so I really don't understand why should the actor use broken English instead of proper English.At last, I give this movie a 7 out of 10, because the production value was high and some of the scene is really good, but sadly it also has some serious flaw that made the movie incomplete.
