Set in the clouds of ancient China, Zu Warriors is about supernatural men and women who spend centuries perfecting their fighting skills and magical powers. They fly through the sky, float in the light of the moon, and sustain their souls and bodies by "consuming [the] mystical essence" of "the great universe" whose "stars and planets are in abundance and forever evolving." This is the region of pure thought. A place where each human body has surrendered its substance, its heaviness, to a will that defies all that is earthly. "In China, the daunting Zu mountains are hidden decks of clouds in the province of Sichuan," says the narrator at the beginning of this kung fu movie. "It is easy to imagine that the place is infused with mysticism, [that people live] here to learn magical power, hoping to become part of the mystic realm."
But to call this a kung fu film is not entirely correct. Zu Warriors has only one physical fight scene, and it is barely believable. The other battles use fantastic forces (beams of light, orbs of light, flying swords) that are visually realized by CGI technology.
Also completely generated by CGI is an evil force that is hungry for power. It wants to destroy everything. It is the devil, it is a flying pack of rocks, it is the mouth at the top of a dead mountain. When the mouth opens it's a red-hot hole that sucks in anything near it. Inside the mouth is a stomach of lava that churns with the souls of destroyed human beings. This is hell; this is the total negative. The warriors of Zu must defeat this evil and save the world.
One dedicated warrior, Enigma (Cecilia Cheung), can fire from the tips of her fingers a deadly blue-red-white ray. Enigma is also Dawn, a woman who at the opening of the film is running a martial arts school that has only one pupil. The school is on a floating rock. The other floating schools in this realm are thriving. Dawn is a sad woman. Her sole pupil, King Sky (Ekin Cheng), loves her with a love that is as pure as the "mystical essence" of the "great universe." All at once, Dawn's face begins to crack and then her whole body falls in fragments.
It's hard to understand why and how this happens; it's hard to understand much of the whys and hows of Zu Warriors' story. But each moment is complete and can stand on its own without relating to the whole. One moment completely captures the beauty of Dawn's face. Another moment is filled by the spectacle of Red's (Louis Koo) spreading metal wings. Another moment, two melancholy fighters stand on floating rocks. The story makes no difference.
Based on a very long book, and released in 2001 as a kind of follow-up to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (both films have the same martial arts director, Yuen Wo Ping—famous in the West for his work on The Matrix), Zu Warriors is directed by Tsui Hark, whose hectic art best represents the supernova of capitalism that China has become.
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