The weapon of the flying guillotine has been the fuel of martial arts exploitation flicks due to its legendary, even apocryphal status. A weapon that probably never existed, it was said to look like a giant hat which enveloped its target's heads and decapitated them with a single stroke. Its use was attached to the short reign of the Manchu Emperor Yongzheng (1723–1735) who had according to legend usurped the throne and needed a means to get rid of his opposition, and therefore built up a secret service unit who specialized in the weapon's use.

Set after the reign of Yongzheng and in the early years of the Great Qianlong (Wen Zhang) Historically this was when the Qing reached its peak power and greatest territorial reach, a rebellion has broken out under a fictitious Han Chinese sect called the Herders, led by a Messiah known as Wolf (Huang Xiaoming). A probable composite of Hong Xiuquan and Amakusa Tokisada Shiro, Wolf is a long haired, charismatic preacher of sorts whose incendiary teachings speak of slapping both cheeks for each slapped and severing an oppressor's leg for every kick aimed at the oppressed. The Guillotines unit is sent westward to root out the Herders and destroy them, even as unbeknownst to them. The unit are led by two Manchu aristocratic commanders, Leng (Ethan Juan) and Haidu (Shawn Yue), who have been best friends and football companions of the Emperor since their youth. It soon turns out that the mission is meant to be a betrayal, after which the Emperor's (here depicted as an enthusiast of Western science and weaponry) newly formed matchlock and artillery units will terminate them.

The latest film to be built around this gimmick, The Guillotines serves up rather than trashy exploitation a steaming melodrama filled with so much slow-motion, tears falling and lips quivering, along with the post-Zhang Yimou syndrome about nearly every single martial arts period piece ending with some kind of speech about good rulership, the mandate of heaven, the love of the people and such big, sappy ideals (This may be the one cinematic convention that Zhang Yimou must answer for when he reports to the Judge of Hell), all told in the midst of countless huge CGI explosions and some rather mediocre special effects. The guillotines themselves are ludicrously borderline steampunk weapons that consist of a sickle-shaped blade that conceals a chakram that it launches and return to its owner without fail, seemingly powered by a kind of unexplained energy source. The end result is too ponderous to be fun, and too overly shallow to be any profound.

The most unintentionally funny thing about it may be the implications of its message: that the need for harmony and peace prevented the Qing from achieving the sort of military prowess ever attained  by Western Europe in the early 19th Century and ever since. So take that, you war-loving Occidentals and your military-industrial complexes!

Fittingly for a film about guillotines the film buzzes around like a headless fly through scattershot themes, bad melodrama, and poor CGI. There are better films to lose your head in.