Swordsman
This will probably be my least favorite King Hu movie by a mile but it's not his fault!!! This was directed by FOUR directors and I am guessing King Hu only worked on the beginning and ending of this.
Quite honestly, this is a non-sense clown movie. Maybe this is a different type of Wuxia, but this is unlike the other two films where the magic was grounded to super speed and acrobatics. This movie legitimately had magic and I had no idea what any of the rules were supposed to be and it seemed self contradictory. I don't want to spoil things but there's more then just a break of physics in this. Also, there's voodoo in this when the other King Hu movies didn't have that and this movie is just a mess and all over the place.
Seriously, this is so fast paced that not a single scene has time to breathe and I was constantly confused by what was happening. Also, there was some weird dubbing and really crazy editing in this that did not help! Even thought I don't know much about the Ming dynasty, I still know enough to follow plot threads related to how things worked back then. Maybe I did understand the other two King Hu films because this just seemed like a mess without anything relating to the history of the time.
They treated a chrysanthemum scroll as if it was some holy relic, when in reality a chrysanthemum scroll was just a certain type of scroll. Even the stuff on the pages of the scroll are not that important and was kind of just a shitty McGuffin by the end! Also, this uses the "Mulan trope" of having a woman soldier hide as a man, but it does not go all the way with it and it quite lazy. In this movie, they kept her hidden and she did an awful job of hiding herself and the whole plot went nowhere by the end. Mulan is one of my favorite movies of all time and the legend that film is based on is one of the few Chinese stories I actually fully know about. There are other things that seemed weird in this but I can't speak if they got it correct.
So yeah, this is a bit of a mess of a movie but it's not all awful. Some of the fights are funny in a ridiculous way and I do love my Iron claw weapons! The sets and outfits were also really neat. I don't feel too bad about my review as this does seem to be one of King Hu's lesser films on here. I am excited because that means it can only really go up from here! I am looking forward to his other films!
Quite honestly, this is a non-sense clown movie. Maybe this is a different type of Wuxia, but this is unlike the other two films where the magic was grounded to super speed and acrobatics. This movie legitimately had magic and I had no idea what any of the rules were supposed to be and it seemed self contradictory. I don't want to spoil things but there's more then just a break of physics in this. Also, there's voodoo in this when the other King Hu movies didn't have that and this movie is just a mess and all over the place.
Seriously, this is so fast paced that not a single scene has time to breathe and I was constantly confused by what was happening. Also, there was some weird dubbing and really crazy editing in this that did not help! Even thought I don't know much about the Ming dynasty, I still know enough to follow plot threads related to how things worked back then. Maybe I did understand the other two King Hu films because this just seemed like a mess without anything relating to the history of the time.
They treated a chrysanthemum scroll as if it was some holy relic, when in reality a chrysanthemum scroll was just a certain type of scroll. Even the stuff on the pages of the scroll are not that important and was kind of just a shitty McGuffin by the end! Also, this uses the "Mulan trope" of having a woman soldier hide as a man, but it does not go all the way with it and it quite lazy. In this movie, they kept her hidden and she did an awful job of hiding herself and the whole plot went nowhere by the end. Mulan is one of my favorite movies of all time and the legend that film is based on is one of the few Chinese stories I actually fully know about. There are other things that seemed weird in this but I can't speak if they got it correct.
So yeah, this is a bit of a mess of a movie but it's not all awful. Some of the fights are funny in a ridiculous way and I do love my Iron claw weapons! The sets and outfits were also really neat. I don't feel too bad about my review as this does seem to be one of King Hu's lesser films on here. I am excited because that means it can only really go up from here! I am looking forward to his other films!
Mini Review: This will probably be my least favorite King Hu movie, but it's not entirely his fault. With four directors involved, it feels all over the place. The grounded wuxia of his earlier films is replaced with confusing magic, voodoo, frantic editing, and pacing so fast that nothing has time to breathe. The scroll MacGuffin and Mulan-style disguise subplot go nowhere. Not all bad though, with the iron claw weapons, sets, costumes, and some fights were fun. Hopefully it's up from here!