Review: Seven Swords (MonkeyPeaches Exclusive)

Tsui Hark was the flagcarrier of Hong Kong action movies during the 1980's and early 1990's. Then we shared the pain of his shameful and short mis-adventure in the Hollywood and we felt sorry for a couple of his movies being overkilled by CG effects a few years ago. Now, Tsui Hark is back, with Seven Swords, a character-driven and action-packed adventure.

The story of Seven Swords is set in the 17th century, in which a new dynasty has been established by the conquering Man or Manchu. A new law, which bans people from practicing martial-art, is issued to crack down any rebellion. The bloodthirsty Fire-Wind (Sun Honglei) forms a private army to enforce the law for the new empire. He not only kills people violated the law but also targets at whoever he can find, because he is rewarded for every kill. While Fire-Wind’s gang is raiding a wedding ceremony, an old man shows up to stop them. He is outnumbered and badly wounded before barely escapes the hand of Fire-Wind’s men. On his way to Bowei Village, he meets Wu Yuanying (Charlie Yeung), daughter of the village master. In the fortified village, the old man warns the villagers about the coming of Fire-Wind’s army and then he is identified as Fu Qingzhu (Liu Kia-Liang), a cold-blooded police officer of the previous dynasty, with Fire-Wind as his right-hand man. Fu claims he has already given up killing but no one believes his story except Wu. At that night, Wu Yuanying persuades Han Zibang, the horse wrangler, to set Fu Qingzhu free. Following Fu’s suggestion, three of them travel to Mt. Heaven to seek help from Master Huiming (Ma Jingwu). In Mt. Heaven, Fu retrieves his sword he surrendered, Wu Yuanying and Han Zhibang each is received a sword, and Master Huiming’s four disciples, Chu Zhaonan (Donnie Yen), Yang Yuncong (Leon Lai), Mu Lang (Duncan Chow) and Xin Longzi （Tai Li-Wu）are ordered to help the people of Bowei Village. As the seven warriors ride out of Mt. Heaven, the legend of a band called the Seven Swords begins.

Until Tsui Hark was encouraged to make Seven Swords, we rarely hear anything from him ever since his Book Sword Love Hatred was cancelled right before the production was supposed to begin, about three years ago. Seven Swords is based on only the first chapter of the original book by Liang Yusheng. Tsui Hark presents over a dozen names right after the story begins. Story line of Seven Swords is quite straightforward and we don’t see too many surprises or twists. No one is really taking the leading role and I can count eight characters are given almost equal screen time. Five of the Seven Swords, Fire-Wind the bad guy, Liu Yufang the school teacher, and Green Pearl the slave girl - each one of them has a past either too haunting to recall or too valuable to let go, and each one of them has a distinctive character, which makes him or her stand out in a story with no one at the center. Large amount of the film is devoted to tell a series of little stories, each of which usually involves no more than three or four characters. This does slows down the pace and makes the main storyline a little bit out of focus. Nevertheless, I do enjoy these little stories with nicely created characters portrayed by a decent cast, especially Sun Honglei (Fire-Wind), Zhang Jingchu (Liu Yufang) and Kim So-Yeon (Green Pearl). Unfortunately, the original cut of the film was four-hour long and by the time it was released, an hour and a half was missing and traces of cut can be found throughout the film. Tsui Hark said he once considered slipping it into half in order to keep the original length, but this would make it very difficult to sell in the overseas market.

The action is not the biggest part of the movie, which is quite unusual for a Tsui Hark’s feature, but when the action comes, he assures that no one is disappointed. Liu Chia-Liang, one of the most active figures from the golden era of Shaw Brothers, choreographed the fight scenes, with helps from two veterans, Tung Wei and Xiong Xinxin. These scenes were nicely designed with very limited usage of wires but they were also cut a little bit too frequently, which made the action somewhat blurry. This might be necessary to hide the truth that most actors were lacking physical trainings. Like all other period films of his, Tsui Hark once again threw us loads of crazy designs. Each of the seven swords was crafted with distinctive features and functions to coincide with the personality of its user. Fire-Wind’s men and a woman look nothing but mean, thanks to the hair, the armories, the battle tattoos and the weapons according to Tsui Hark’s sketches.
 

Seven Swords is a success for Tsui Hark returning to the arena of martial-art cinema, even though it won’t let us forget about Ang Lee or Zhang Yimou so easily. The storytelling suffers from being cut but a DVD, with the original cut, has been promised, and more encouragingly, a series of sequels will be developed to continue the story. Go check this one out when it becomes available to you and while watching it, keep something in mind – this is only the beginning of Seven Swords’ legend.
 

- Y.