Family Outing

Family outings are always about movies. The previous one that we had was the 黄金甲last December I think during my parents' wedding anniversary. Yesterday we went out for 投名状. Interesting movie. Basically, 李连杰（Jet),刘德华(Andy) and 金城武(well, im sure its Takeshi Kaneshiro. For simplicity, I'll just refer to him as TK=D) were all given their fair share of emotional scenes. Tearing, crying, screaming etc etc.
The story goes: Jet (庞清云）was a General who feign death during war to escape death. The honesty when he admited that was quite impressive. Thumbs up for his personality. He then met Andy's(赵二虎）wife and they fell in love. Never did Jet know that he will meet TK(姜午阳）, who was a fellow bandit of Andy. TK brought Jet to meet Andy. It was only then that Jet found out that his 'woman-of-his-dream' was the wife of the man he was to be sworn brothers with. The process of becoming sworn brothers is known as 投名状.
Jet led them to serve the army so that they'll no longer be bullied and never have to suffer from hunger. TK trusted Jet wholeheartedly, with the naivity that I thought only a little boy can pull off. And the climax of the movie came when stranded outside the City of Suzhou without rations in an extended war, Jet and TK went to look for help. Meanwhile, seeing that a wait was undesirable, Andy entered the city as an opium seller. The ruler saw through his disguise as some of Andy's childhood friends who did not enter army with Andy went on to serve the ruler. For the sake of the people of Suzhou who were stuck in the city, the ruler let Andy kill him in exchange of the freedom of his people and the lives of his soldiers. This part was quite unexpected as the 'foreplay' of the duel was quite seriously-fighting sort. Im so proud of the ruler! Very 伟大!
While the army celebrated the success of Andy, Jet was unwilling to feed the soldiers of Suzhou as rations was lacking. Letting them go will mean a future threat. He fed them their last meal and kinda ordered for their extermination. Andy was very agitated as he is a man of his words and TK got people to lock him up while the execution of the killing was taking place. You might be thinking that Jet and TK are heartless pigs. Well, they were very very sad as they were forced to kill friends who they have known for years. But the practicality of war left them no choice. It was the 热血男儿泪 kinda thing. Faced with a similar situation, I'm not sure that I can make such decisions. Therefore, I'm not one suited for really big things. Will never be able to deal with the guilt. So yup, 平凡也是一种幸福yea.
They went on to defeat another city but their brotherhood was actually more of a facade, at least between Andy and Jet. Hmm.. Jet was given a 两岸总督post by the empress dowager who then ordered for the death of Andy. Jet tricked Andy to a deserted place and ambushed him. TK meanwhile found out about the extra-marital affairs of Jet and his Sister-in-law and about how Jet was planning to kill Andy. He deduced that his Sister-in-law must be the key to the souring relationships between Jet and Andy. He killed his sister-in-law. Jet suffered the lost of both a brother and his lover.
依投名状， 兄弟若有杀我兄弟者，必杀之. With this, TK tried avenging for Andy. He did not have the capabilities to kill Jet, but the empress dowager had already ambushed to help him shoot Jet to death, with all thinking that TK was the one who killed Jet. For that, TK was executed two months later.
So you see, big movies end with everyone dying. Oh well. DEAD. With the ability to feel for the characters and understand the emotional turmoil that each was going through, you should find this movie rather good. Not recommended for people who think more with their head and less with their heart because the storyline does not requires much analysis on the viewer's part.
Just a side note: TK has teeth that are super white (not a vulgarity) and straight! He should be the spokesperson for some toothpaste!