75
Ultimately, the film works because the doctor's relationship with the general - and both of their relationships with the doctor's young boy - is just as complicated as the action-packed coup.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
63
A historical melodrama that retains an ancient, elemental pull even as it insufficiently charts motivation and the self-denying values of antiquity.
40
The Fifth Generation filmmaker has aced such recipes before (e.g. The Emperor and the Assassin); this time, both the spectacular and the human elements have apparently been offered to the gods.
50
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
It's tough to care about characters who spend most of their lives obsessing over the violent deaths of others.
70
Sacrifice is practically a chamber piece, and duly draws its strength from its performances, especially those of Ge and Wang.
50
Sacrifice wants to have it both ways. It's willing neither to give itself up to the goofy sincerity of genre conventions nor to make the demands on viewers that serious drama requires. The sacrifices Chen's characters make would signify that much more if he'd made a sacrifice or two himself.
40
Chen's attention to character over spectacle pays minimal dividends and is compounded by the fact that his battles - full of standard-issue slow motion and hacked-off limbs - are as dull as an overused blade.
88
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
In Sacrifice, about a father who loses his son to the power of the state, it is difficult to miss the parallels with Chen's own life.
75
Chen can't seem to decide whether he's making a fable or something more down-to-earth, but Sacrifice works either way, if not both at once.