Less ostentatious than Hero and a good deal more fun, Warriors of Heaven and Earth is an unapologetically grandiose period piece. Everything has been super-sized: the performances run the short gamut between stone-faced heroism and moustache-twirling villainy, the desert landscapes loom ominously in wide-screen, and the score offers rousing fanfares with alarming regularity.

Subtlety, then, is not the order of the day. Rather, writer-director He Ping has seemingly fashioned his film with accessibility as his chief aim. And on that front, he's succeeded. Warriors of Heaven and Earth is entertaining without being at all challenging, redeeming its tired thematic leitmotifs of honour among swordsmen (see also: virtually every Chinese action film ever made) with truly spectacular visual presentation and enough plot for an entire miniseries.

Lai Xi (Nakai Kiichi) is a Japanese soldier turned Chinese mercenary, enlisted by his superiors to hunt down a dissident soldier, Lieutenant Li (Jiang Wen). As a reward, he will be granted his return home. What seems like a set-up for a simple pursuit narrative changes abruptly once the two warriors meet, battle to a draw and decide -- after much manly grumbling and gnashing of teeth -- to pool their energies into protecting an imperilled Silk Road caravan transporting a monk and a valuable artifact to the capital.

As armistices go, it's hardly the sweetest. The agreement is that they will fight to the death upon the caravan's safe arrival. But once they turn their attention to other matters -- such as the presence of marauding Turkish bandits, not to mention the henchmen of the local warlord -- they become quite the dynamic duo.