Seven Swords
Reviewed by Lee Alon
Not counting the horrible Black Mask 2, Seven
Swords represents Tsui Hark's return to the director's seat, a hallowed
place the man perhaps doesn't take as seriously as he did back when he
helmed mega-classics like New Dragon Inn and Zu: Warriors from Magic Mountain.
His latest opens on a startling, refreshing note with brutal action segments
depicting the movie's villains taking out an entire village of martial
artists, practitioners deemed illegal by the remote, anonymous emperor.
Although merely glancing at the carnage rather than showcasing a full-on
bloodbath, this scene works amazingly well in that it brings back campy
joys straight out of the genre's heyday.
Even more, the excellent bad guys, resplendent
in outlandish costumes and makeup, seem as if from some satisfying mid
80's hack 'n' slash number a la Barbarian Queen or Conan, which of course
any whole-hearted action lover will spontaneously warm to. Led by General
Firewind, the evildoers move as skull-collecting bounty hunters in a vicious
campaign of murder, not even bothering to spare women and children. Delicious!
Firewind's by far the film's best character, done by superb Sun Honglei,
an always great actor whom we’ve enjoyed before in “The Road Home” and
“Zhou Yu's Train”. His motley crew of madcap killers provides an abundant
source of fun as well, each one deserving a good pat on the back for a
job well-executed (pun intended).
Sadly, beyond this Seven Swords is a bloated behemoth
at least fifty minutes too long. Most of it falls into easily avoidable
traps, consisting mainly of mainstream sword action, too many characters
for its own good and the usual focus on virtuous-righteous heroes winging
in to save the day. The titular seven swords refer to a league of champions
devoted to fighting injustice and protecting poor villagers from Firewind's
rampaging force of deviants. Naturally, you can't help but root for the
baddies, seeing as these synthetic goodie two-shoes have none of the amiable
quirks that made us sympathize with, say, Kurusawa's Seven Samurai. The
side of goodness here is just annoying. Their pivotal protagonists are
next to invisible, with both Donnie Yen (Iron Monkey, Hero) and torpid-looking
popstar Leon Lai almost asleep at the wheel. Others, such as veteran martial
artist Lau Kar Leung (who also choreographed) and Charlie Yeung (recently
spotted in New Police Story together with half of Hong Kong's film and
stage community) can be witnessed merely marking time till the paychecks
start rolling.
Granted, 7S has just that, seven cool swords,
but they're caught trying to pose as the Green Destiny half the time, with
the other half spent impersonating Lord of the Rings or Musa. In fact,
Seven Swords is an outright rip of the latter, with a story following a
group of refugees as they stand off against maniacal warriors, all set
against harsh backdrops and some eye-catching locales. Donnie Yen even
falls for a Korean princess-turned-slave in a lift out of Musa's tale,
where a liberated slave warrior from Korea fell for a princess from China
(Zhang Ziyi). How obvious can you get? And said Korean princess (Kim So
Yeun) doesn't even hold to scrutiny, doing a horribly stereotypical portrayal
of the ever-abused Korean woman, bouts of hysteria included. Together with
a few select moments of bubble-gum elasticity, the relationship between
Yen and Kim sticks in the movie's mid-section like eternal desert dunes
separating one oasis from another, as audiences long for a reprieve from
this artificially sentimental dry spell.
And Seven Swords, despite costing more than Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon or any other martial arts flick in recent memory,
doesn't enliven the sleeping genre, and has none of the magic associated
with its cherished contributions. We don't get wirefu, sword magic or any
of those superlatively goofy elements, while there's more than ample evidence
suggesting the project suffers from the same pompous self-importance afflicting
previous bores of a similar ilk, to wit Hero and Warriors of Heaven and
Earth. It also ends on a glaringly sequelish note, with the hero posse
riding into the dusty horizon.
Offensively, Tsui Hark and his minions here kowtow
to today's political landscape, fearful of making certain power brokers
up north nervous with "subversive" content, hence the cavalier crew head
to the capital aiming to politely convince the Emperor to cancel his anti-martial
arts edict. Back in the day they'd make the sequel showing them dethroning
the bastard amid buckets of blood, but this isn't the place to cry over
lost liberties or increased sensitivity. All told, Seven Swords does not
justify the long wait we've endured getting to it. It's long, laborious,
burdened with extraneous baggage and even has a poorly dubbed over voice
track, since half the cast speak Cantonese, the others Putonghua and Korean.
What a mess of lost opportunities.
Rating: 5/10
Directed by Tsui Hark
Starring Donnie Yen, Sun Honglei, Leon Lai,
Charlie Yeung, Jiang Jingchu, Kim So Yeun
2005, Cantonese/Korean, 154 minutes
Contact Lee Alon here