a5c7b9f00b A retired old west killer sets up a hotel for vagrants and wayward souls called Peace Hotel. When a woman with a gang on her tail attempts to hide there the owner of the hotel must revert to his old ways to protect his hotel. Set circa 1930, &quot;The King of Killers&quot;, a one-man killing machine who, after his wife&#39;s murder, has decided to set up the &quot;Peace Hotel&quot;, a sanctuary where anyone can stay and be protected from those who want to harm them. Although he has pledged never to kick anyone out of the Peace Hotel, he is put to the test when a penniless female swindler, who is wanted by a vicious gang for murdering their boss, shows up. Now he has to decide whether to risk an all-out war with the gang, or whether to ask her to leave the hotel. This contribution to the &quot;Western&quot; genre from Hong Kong is just about the most offensively poor film I&#39;ve seen that actually had a budget. I don&#39;t know how much it cost to make (I&#39;m guessing at a few million), but it was money down the toilet. I am an admirer of the work of Chow Yun Fat, both in Hong Kong and Hollywood, but I was shocked and disappointed to discover how low his standards are capable of dropping,demonstrated by his heavy involvement in this shoddy piece of work (main actor and co-writer). Essentially, the story is of a part of wild China in/around early 20th c, in which a former gangster and mass-murderer reforms his life and builds the Peace Hotel, a refuge for all the area&#39;s disowned and hunted. This situation is maintained for 10 years, when a woman of dubious character turns up and claims refuge. However, she is at the centre of a plot to bring down the Peace Hotel, the owner, and all he stands for. Why is this a disastrous production? Where do I start…..The back-stories of the two main characters are treated in an overly sentimental way, the soundtrack throughout the film is irritating, the story didn&#39;t interest me, I found the pacing to be slow without being gripping, and most of the characters seemed to be one-dimensional, pointless, irritating and/or unlikeable. I also got the impression that there were gaps in the story in terms of explaining motives, but it may be that if I had taken more of an interest in the film I might have understood it better. Frankly, I was bored rigid after the first 30 minutes, and couldn&#39;t wait for it to end. Yawn. This review contains minor spoilers.<br/><br/>This whole movie&#39;s look is very similar to the spaghetti western, but with richer production values. Peace Hotel is noteworthy in several respects. First, it is the last Hong Kong movie Chow Yun-Fat has made to this date. Also, Chow Yun-Fat is bald in the beginning, and does some fast-paced swordplay. These both are precursors to his now famous partLi Mu Bai in Ang Lee&#39;s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which is not a Hong Kong movie,Ang Lee does not work within the Hong Kong movie system, and the film is in Mandarin, not Cantonese). This movie also marks the reunion of Chow Yun-Fat and Cecilia Yip, who had not worked together since 1984 (Hong Kong 1941). This was also the last time Wu Chien-lien was in a movie with Chow Yun-Fat, who had been in Treasure Hunt and God of Gamblers&#39; Return with him the year prior to this. However, her cameo lasts about two seconds.<br/><br/>Anyway, enough background. One of the few movies where Chow Yun-Fat contributed to the writing, this movie has his brand of comedy. It also has Chow Yun-Fat just killin&#39; a whole mess of people. The visual design and costumes are pretty fantastic, and the movie has a good pace to it. There is a kind of fantasy feeling to this movie,it is a mixture of the American western genre, but with Chinese tints to it. Cecilia Yip gives a pretty good performance here, and Chow Yun-Fat gets to show much of his range herean actor, even though he tries to remain distant throughout the movie.
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