Junya Sato's THE SILK ROAD, a large-scale Chinese-Japanese co-production, is watered-down Kurosawa, a comic book spectacle without subtext or emotional involvement.
In the year 1026, royal prince Li Yuanhao (Tsunehiko Watase) forms an army to raid merchants who travel the 5000-mile expanse of the silk road in China. On the road, traveling with a group of merchants, is Zhao Xingde (Koichi Sato), a student tagging along with a caravan en route to the city of
Xixia, where Zhao hopes to learn to read and write the Xixian dialect. But Li's troops, led by Zhu Wangli (Toshiyuki Nishida), attack the caravan and Zhao is taken prisoner. Zhu becomes impressed with Zhao aft...
Released:
1992
Rated:
PG-13
Length:
126 mins