Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants, 2025 - ★★★½
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
The movie, *Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants* (known as *มังกรหยก* in Thai), is a story that has been told countless times, with numerous remakes over the years. Despite this, this version stands out for its stunning visuals. The team clearly knows how to create impressive scenes and action sequences. The use of colors, visual effects, and cinematography is outstanding, making for a spectacular experience.
However, while the movie excels in visuals, it heavily relies on prior knowledge of the story, making it difficult for newcomers or even casual fans to follow. Character backgrounds are not adequately explained, as brief flashbacks fail to provide sufficient context. The film rushes through character introductions, diving straight into action scenes without proper setup.
While it is understandable that explaining every character and every detail in a story of this scale and timeline is challenging, more could have been done to build up the narrative. Currently, even viewers familiar with the story struggle to keep track of characters and timelines. The storyline also places too much emphasis on the love triangle, which detracts from the overall narrative. Focusing on exploration of the war theme could have improved the film significantly.
Despite its flaws, I still enjoy it for the action scenes, which are more memorable than those in most Hollywood films. But I would not recommend it to anyone who is unfamiliar with the story, as it would likely be too confusing.