I went to watch A Battle Of Wits, 墨攻 with Angie yesterday. At first, I was apprehensive about watching it after having seen similarly high acclaimed movies like 十面埋伏 and 无极 turning out to be crappy movies. But after hearing good words of it from Kian, I decided to give it a try.

May contain spoiler. Click here to read.

It's about Liang City (梁城), that is coming under the attack of Zhao country (赵国). Zhao sent an army 100,000 troop to conquer Liang. The ruler of Liang is someone who is more concerned about lives his life on the high side and maintaining his power than the welfare of his people. At first, he asks the people of Mo (墨家) to help him. Unfortunately, Mo is against war and decided not to help them. With the Zhao army almost at their doorstep, and the Mo people nowhere in sight, he decided to surrender.

He sent his general to the Zhao army to negotiate surrender. However, the Zhao vanguard arrives before the surrender team meets with the Zhao general. The prince of Liang decides to not fight the Zhao vanguard, but to tell them their surrender intentions. Just then, Ge Li (革离) of Mo came. He tells them that the people will still suffer when they surrender. The Zhao army will not give them a good time. They should fight on. People may die. But if they survive, they'll live with pride.

At first, they are skeptical of him. The city only has 4000 people. And that's including the old and the young and the ladies. They are facing an army of 100,000. Ge has no experience in fighting a war. Ge came alone. How are they to hope to overcome such overwhelming odds?

By employing superior tactics, Ge manages to turn away the enemy again and again. Slowly, he gains the respect of the people. However, this incurs the jealousy of the Liang ruler. He fears that Ge will usurp him as ruler of Liang, despite the fact that the Mo people are known for their willingness to help people in trouble and not seek any payment. More importantly, he cannot stand that his people respect other people more than him. So when the Zhao army finally retreats, he sets about getting rid of Ge.

Ge manages to escape, but the prince was killed in the process. And the Zhao army returns to conquer Liang. Just when all seems gone, Ge returns to save them again. This time, the Liang ruler manages to kill the Zhao general and claimed the credit of turning away the enemy. He got back his respect while Ge leaves quietly with the orphans of Liang to spread Mo teachings.

5 years later, the Liang ruler was overthrown. But that's to be expected.
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Hamsup had told me that this movie is only average. It starts with some nice war scenes and ends with some nice war scenes, but in the middle it's all lovey dovey. However, I found that to be not really true. There is really a love element to the story, but I thought it's only a small part of the story, and it serves to illustrate Ge's character more. Overall, it's a nice story with the characters nicely developed. It’s definitely with the price of the weekend movie ticket.