Kingdom 2: To Distant Lands

Alice in Borderland director Shinsuke Sato is making his presence known very soon with the sequel to one of the best-selling Mang Kingdom. I really liked the first installment, it had a bit of an RPG feel to it. The protagonist travels the countryside, recruiting new people to his team and killing opponents along the way, each with a different difficulty level; it entertained me, and when you have great visuals and awesome action, there's not much to complain about. The second part brings a more epic scale and you could say it's a two-hour battle between two nations with Hollywood effects and a cool soundtrack. There's not much of a story and historians will grumble that it's a rape of Chinese history, but it's fantasy, it's manga and ironically the battle is better filmed than anything China has ever done about the Qin dynasty. The protagonist dreams of becoming a great general and really does everything to do so. The action has great choreography and cinematography, the assassins, the ninjas, the samurai – I just love it. At times I thought back to Rurouni Kenshin and thought that there hasn't been an action flick like this since Kenshin from Japan. It was also nice to see a new female character on the scene, trained to kill since she was a kid, and she goes for a very nice solo (very over powered). I also have to praise the costumes, hairstyles and overall look of the generals, it's really iconic and you can like all the characters, which is terribly important. Those who like epic and long battles, without any lengthy explanations and boring bullshit, will enjoy it as much as I did. 75% (05.01.2023)