Crouching Camel...

One

hit movie can create a genre. When Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon became a worldwide smash, esteemed directors saw the chance to paint their visions on a larger canvas, and producers were happy to bankroll them. Zhang Yimou's Hero was one such honorable spinoff. Now comes He Ping's Warriors of Heaven and Earth, China's official entry for the foreign-language Academy Award.

We're back on the Silk Road, this time in Western China (Xinjiang province) 14 centuries ago. Lai Xi (Kiichi Nakai), a Japanese swordsman in the Tang Emperor's court, is assigned to capture and kill "Butcher" Li (Jiang Wen), a once-respected army officer accused of treason because he refused to kill women and children in a raid. Lai Xi and Li make an uneasy truce long enough to escort a general's daughter (Vicky Zhao Wei) and a Buddhist monk to safety. Can they escape the pursuit of evil Master An (Wang Xueqi), the preening aesthete and superslick fighter who stands in their path?

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This is a real Eastern Western: grizzled heroes enacting blood feuds in a gloriously forlorn landscape—the Taklimakan Desert—where the men ride camels as well as horses. Our outlaw hero has a familiar cohort of misfits: sassy kid, young woman, saintly monk and an old man with one last battle in him. I don't know if you can drawl in Mandarin, but Jiang Wen is sure-as-shootin' John Wayne, the gruff leader who tells his supporting-actor pals, "I don't want to turn your wives into widows," and rides off alone. (Of course they follow.)

Warriors isn't up there with Crouching Tiger and Hero. It meanders in places then rushes through a half-dozen climaxes, including one with weak visual effects (and copped from Raiders of the Lost Ark). But Zhao Fei's cinematography is ravishing, the actors bring heft and glamour to their roles, and the battle scenes have a clanging thrill to them. When the good guys and bad guys wage a group sword fight on horseback, you'll wonder why Hollywood ever thought it could get away with boring old guns.