New wuxia feature Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants has smashed box office records in China. While it may not quite match its popularity in terms of quality, it is a solid entry for the genre and a hell of a good time for fans of Chinese martial arts fantasy. Director Tsui Hark must surely be pleased to have yet another hit on his hands.

Jin Yong’s serialised novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes was an enormous commercial success when it was published in Hong Kong from 1957. It popularised wuxia (martial arts fantasy) among the city’s readers, and led to no small number of film and television adaptations – of which Tsui’s film is the latest. The general popularity of Condor Heroes, while ensured commercial success among Chinese readers and moviegoers alike, makes it quite a challenge for an international audience. It is extraordinary plot-heavy, with a multi-generational story that features a dizzying array of characters. Tsui’s new film, for example, is a two-and-a-half hour adaptation of chapters 34 to 40 of the book. My honest advice is to just go along for the ride, and pick up the back story details as you go.

War rages between the powerful Jin dynasty and the northern Mongol khanate. The heroic martial artist Guo Jing (Xiao Zhan), raised among the Mongols after the death of his father, wanders in search of his lover Huang Rong (Zhuang Dafei). Both have been targeted by the mighty Venom West (Tony Leung Ka-fai), who seeks a scripture that was once in their possession that will make him the most powerful martial artist in the world.

The Gallants charts a middle ground in the wuxia genre, neither packed to the ceiling with balletic kung fu fights nor grounded with long scenes deliberating upon war strategy and mass combat. There is nothing particularly innovative or experimental here; if a bolder translation is what you are after, Wong Kar-wai’s Ashes of Time is always available. Instead Tsui has directed a solid and engaging slice of mass entertainment. It is romantic and melodramatic, boasts a continent-wide scale of storytelling, includes scenes of both one-on-one magical duelling and mass war-time violence, and manages to utilise CGI enhancements to give everything a glossy, high-budget feel. Its overwhelming box office achievement is the result of its style. It is populist through and through, and so a popular audience has embraced it.

Xiao Zhan is a comfortably entertaining lead actor, tasked with doing the noble and unflinchingly idealistic things that a martial artist hero does. For more interesting is co-star Zhuang Dafei, who ably balances the more varied and nuanced requirements of Huang Rong. She is earnest in some scenes, scathing and judgemental in others, and frequently quite delightfully comedic. Supporting performances are solid and dependable, including Baya’ertu as Genghis Khan and Zhang Wenxin as his lovestruck daughter Huajan.

The film’s big surprise is Tony Leung Ka-fai, one of Hong Kong’s most accomplished and beloved actors, in the villainous role of Venom West. He played Huang Yaoshi, Huang Rong’s father, in Wong’s Ashes of Time, and here he plays one of Huang’s rivals. It is a profoundly over-the-top and theatricalised performance that he gives, and infuses each of his scenes with a particular kind of entertainment value.

There may be challenges for viewers fresh to Condor Heroes or wuxia in general, and some viewers may find it rather too long for its own good, but The Gallants is a pleasure for its fan base and another decent fantasy hit for Tsui Hark. It does not quite match the director at his very best, but even second-string Tsui represents a solid night out at the movies.