how many years has tsui hark been plodding along? and still he turns in this solid effort while the film industry in HK are still going down hill at the box offices.
yet he goes out to the XinJiang wilderness and do this 7 swords - an ensemble cast from an Chinese paper pop wuxia column written in the 50s. for what you have to wonder? fame... fortune ..love of the movies? could be .. or maybe more.
this film is meticulous, well told, well styled, with an interesting choice in action director to boot: the old timer, Lau Kar-Leung, who is not a specialist in sword play. why again? meticulous in the constant mix of medium and close-ups -- his style, and washes these with occasional wides. here he adds the constant flash-backs. meticulous in color control, lighting, the heat of the battle, the heart of the story.
His movies are kind of a Chinese comic book; or the Chinese science fiction. it is arguably for the Chinese spirit, documents upon documents of the Chinese mind set, the hopes and dreams in the culture (because of suppressions?),ideals and philosophies and sustainment of what maybe to him -- that are Chinese? and yet universal at the same time? i'm reaching sure. but i'm Chinese after all.
Plot summary
In the early 1600's, the Manchurians have taken over sovereignty of China and established the Ching Dynasty. While many nationalist revolts still brew within the martial artists' community, the newly set-up government immediately imposes a Martial Arts Ban, forbidding the practice of martial arts altogether in order to gain control and order. Wind Fire (Sun Hong-Lei),a surrendered military official from the previous dynasty, sees this as an opportunity to make a fortune for himself by helping to execute the new law. Greedy, cruel, and immoral, Wind Fire ravages the North-western China, and his next goal is to attack the final frontier, Martial Village. Fu Qingzhu, a retired executioner from the previous dynasty, feels the need to put a stop to this brutality and sets out to save Bowei Fortress. He brings Wu Yuanyin and Han Zhiban from the village with him to Mount Heaven to seek help from Master Shadow-Glow, a hermit who is a master of swords and leads a group of disciples of great swordsmanship. Master Shadow-Glow agrees to help, and orders four of his best disciples to go. Together with Chu Zhaonan, Yang Yunchong, Mulong, and Xin Longzi, the SEVEN SWORDS is formed and their heroic journey begins. As they lead the entire village to the road of a safer place, they begin to encounter mysterious confusion. Food and water is poisoned, and trails of escape are marked with signs leading the enemy to them. They soon realize that there is an undercover spy, and the SEVEN SWORDS must identify him/her before Wind Fire's army gets to them. Between this narrow gap of life and death, the situation is further complicated by the blossoms of love.
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No one mentioned Kenji Kawai the music composer yet..
I am a sound guy and always feel that audio plays a big part in the success of a film. Look at Braveheart or Lord of the Rings or Moulin Rouge.
Seven Swords soundtrack is composed by Kenji Kawai. A talented Japanese that has composed music for Japanese Anime: Ranma ½, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, Ghost in the Shell, Blue Seed, Patlabor 2 & 3, Gunparade March, etc and movies for The Ringu, The Ringu 2, Dark Water, Princess Blade, etc.
Kenji Kawai is one of the top Japanese music composer, together with the ranks of Yoko Kanno, Joe Hisaishi, Nobuo Uematsu (godfather of Final Fantasy I to XII music).
I won't comment too much on Seven Swords story itself because I did not read the novel written by Liang Yu-Shen. It will be unfair to criticize how accurate or inaccurate Tsui Hark based his movie on. Did Donnie Yen's character 'Chu Zhaonan' and the mysterious girl spoke Korean in the original novel? Or it is Tsui Hark's idea to add some Korean flavor, hoping to break into the Korean market?
I do want to say that the fighting scenes are too tightly edited. Too many different camera angle cuts during a single fight scenes make my eyes sore. I believe the quick cuts was edited to make the characters look more skilled and smooth because in actual filming, they have difficulties handling the heavy swords or stunts.
Mao points: 7/10
SEVEN SWORDS (Tsui Hark, 2005) ***
With this film, the Asians seem to have reclaimed the "Seven Samurai" plot line but here the seven are somewhat haphazardly chosen (since the skill lies not with the person itself but the particular sword he or she brandishes, hence the title). However, by concentrating on the romantic complications in which a few of the main characters become embroiled, some of the warriors are kept too much in the background…but the leader of the seven is as unassuming as Takashi Shimura had been in SEVEN SAMURAI (1954),while the chief villain is flamboyantly played in the manner of Eli Wallach from THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960)! There is no denying the fact that its mainstay are the epic scope of the production itself (highlighting the meticulous period detail) and the elaborate action sequences which, thankfully, are rarely implausible - as most actioners from Asia (even the more critically lauded ones) tended to be of late! Apparently, the film (which runs for more than 2½ hours) was trimmed down from an even longer version; though the IMDb doesn't mention this, a Maltese friend of mine who's a veritable Asian-film nut assured me of it…and, in fact, the narrative did feel kind of choppy to me!