Coming from the opposite spectrum of the gritty ultra-realistic “The Warlords,” comes another epic Chinese period piece dubbed “An Empress and the Warriors.” The movie stars Kelly Chen (I repeat KELLY CHEN!!!) as the pic’s main action fighting heroine, with Donnie Yen and Leon Lai as her main sidekicks. The movie itself is an odd amalgamation of the period epic battle pic, mixed in with a lovey-dovey sub-plot, and a just-for-the-sake-of-it short segment straight out of the canto-pop music world.

In “An Empress and the Warriors” the kingdom of Yan is at war with the Zhao empire. During a heated battle the king of Yan is seriously wounded by a Zhao arrow. Rather than give authority to his knuckle headed nephew, the king of Yan delegates authority to Murong (Donnie Yen). This causes his unruly nephew to take out the king of Yan permanently. Now a power vacuum exists over the kingdom of Yan. The king did give Murong temporary powers over Yan, but when it comes to permanent succession he’s not the ideal candidate. Murong actually comes from an orphan background with no royal bloodlines. To prevent any further dissension and to prevent the evil nephew from taking power, Murong nominates the King’s own daughter, Yan Feier (Kelly Chen), as the kingdom’s successor. The nephew throws out the expected complaints about Yan Feier’s gender, but eventually Yan Feier, with the backing of Murong is able to win out.

Yan Feier now partakes in a crash course in the art of warfare from Murong. During this time assassins are sent out (perhaps from the nephew?) to take out Yan Feier at the appropriate time (i.e. when she’s all alone). The assassins chase Yan Feier through the forest, when they come across a fellow name Duan LanQuan (Leon Lai). LanQuan watches the chase from a distance, then takes the initiative to take out the assassins with a myriad of traps he has laid out in the forest. Meanwhile, Yan Feir is critically wounded from poisoned blow darts. The good Duan LanQuan then takes Yan Feier back to his penthouse treehouse and whips up a potent batch of herbal medicine to get Yan Feier back on her feet. During this time of recuperation, Yan Feier falls for Duan LanQuan and vice versa. Their mini holiday ends when Yan Feir leaves to tend to her kingdom.

Once Yan Feir arrives back in Yan, she finds the kingdom to be in shambles. Threatened by hostile exterior forces and mutiny from within her own Yan Kingdom, Yan Feir attempts to unite the Yan Kingdom once again. Meanwhile, her heart and mind is in another place, thinking about her love, Duan LanQuan.

The decision to cast Kelly Chen in the starring role in “”An Empress and the Warriors”” will likely raise the most eyebrows. On the one hand, the filmmakers likely knew in advance that this movie wasn’t going to be a classic, so why not cast a popular Hong Kong singer & actress to bring more people to the box office? The flipside to this rationale is that Kelly Chen looked completely out of place in “An Empress and the Warrior” and made an already hokey film even hokier. Certainly when Kelly Chen plays a solitaire addicted psychiatrist like she did in “Infernal Affairs” she’s within her elements, but when she dons an armored plated suit and yells “Attack!!!,” while holding up a 50 lb sword, things just don’t seem right.

To exacerbate this problem and make feminists wince, the filmmakers subconsciously or consciously made the Empress one of the worst military leaders in movie history. Not only did she let rival leaders escape during an on field battle, but out of the blue, she vacates her all important throne to live in a treehouse with her new found flame. I don’t think you will find Andy Lau or Jet Li making such whimsical decisions.

“An Empress and the Warriors” is a clear example of “jack of all trades, master of none.” Within the movie’s brisk 90 minute runtime the warfare aspects of the movie felt rushed and given just the bare minimum attention. The love story angle felt more like a film within a film, rather than a continuation of the original storyline. The actual battle scenes were done in a more entertaining manner, but by this time it was a case of too little too late. Meanwhile, casting Kelly Chen in the starring role just didn’t work and the script compounded stereotypes of female figures in important leadership positions. As you can tell by now, there’s not a whole lot to like about “An Empress and the Warriors.”