Chris Barsanti

Yuen Woo-Ping’s rabidly fun and cameo-packed wuxia opens with a note informing viewers that the setting is China, 1861: “It is a turbulent time.” When you have a villain with armor scales grown into his skin and a hero who trains with invisible gods in a drunken stupor, yes, it’s safe to say that things are turbulent. This turns out to be good for the audience, less so for many of the people on-screen…