The cinematography is gorgeous as always, and the performances are pretty good across the board (particularly newcomer Ni Ni and Christian Bale as the Westerner caught in the middle of the conflict), but the real star is the story itself, which earns
its emotional beats without feeling like it's pandering to the audience.
Not exact matches
When the
beat of the music matches the
beat of your heart, you can easily lose yourself in someone's embrace and make an
emotional connection
without having to say a word.
As the second half unfolds, the absence of an
emotional core becomes ever more glaring, hopping from one action
beat to the next
without ever asking us to care — or, at times, understand — what's going on.
Tone is well balanced too as the picture's three chapters navigate zany comedy with dark
emotional beats and back again mostly
without strain.