Seven Swords (2005)

Too much of everything

Admirable film.

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This is a great martial arts film that could probably qualify as just a good film in general.It has interesting characters, a decent plot line, some great cinematography, and excellent fight and battle scenes. For those who hate the wire-fu genre, don't worry. They sacrifice the acrobatics here for some real gritty action, lots of blood and guts flowing with every severed limb, gouged eyeball, and decapitated head.The characters of the "Seven Swords" are dominated by Lai Ming, Donnie Yen and Charlie Yeung. The other ones are there but have much less significant roles. The design and use of the swords they use are quite remarkable. I really liked the secret to Charlie's sword.The plot line with the Korean mistress was a bit of a misdirect but it did play an important part of the story and gave Donnie a chance to try speaking Korean.The ending was the one disappointing part. You can see the director/writing wanting to do a sequel so badly. But alas, it never came to pass (yet).8/10

Tsui Hark's 'Chat Gim' is visually wonderful. The breathtaking and landscape, the beautiful set design and colourful frame, the brilliant composition of images, the mesmerizing cinematography and skilled editing superbly come together. Hark parallel's good vs evil and beautiful vs awful very well. He clearly takes his inspiration from the masterworks of Kurosawa (even though this film is an adaptation) and, in my opinion, produces something better than the likes of Ang Lee's overrated 'Wo Hu Cang Long'.The only minor drawback, I'd say, is that the story is not anything new and it is not as impactive as Kurosawa's work. Then again, Hark manages to bring his own style and give it a unique presentation and 'Chat Gim' by no means is pretentious piece of work. The subplots fit well together and the characters are interesting. Perhaps a few could have been further developed? However, the actors do an adequate job. The fight scenes are not too many but they're appropriately set within the context of the story. They are very well choreographed and do not look over the top as is the case in many films ('Wo Hu Cang Long' being an example of such). Unlike other films of this genre, this one is very human.It's a bit funny how I got hold of the DVD. My brother owned it and I was teasing him that I'll take the DVD and keep it (he gets very irritated when I do that) and to my surprise he told me that I can have it. Now I'm glad I get to keep the film. Hark put a lot of heart in the making of this beautiful film. It's certainly one of the better films from the Wuxia genre (one of the best I've seen so far). It's not only visually pleasing, it has a heart of gold :).

The story must have been made by someone with a half brain. The intention of the story-writer was to make a hot-action movie full of oriental mystery new and new and new dramatic events turning up. Instead of being dramatical, the story changes to an empty and boring filler between poorly filmed action scenes. The dialogs are so poor, that they seemed to be worked out by the actors during the shots. The only thing I found positive is the conception of some side-kick characters. Unfortunately, the main villains as well as all the "Fantastic good guys" are flat, banal and unimpressive. If you like "Hero" or "Musa", be sure to miss this crap!Buy yourself a wooden sword and go practice into the woods instead of watching this! I am sure, you'll get better adventure.

After the opening sequence of this film I thought I was in store for a stylish piece of cinema. It turned out to be a piece of crap. The film has some good photography but is plagued by a silly story, too many characters, and kung fu sequences that just aren't very good. I would rather watch old Bruce Lee fight scenes than watch the generic, lame fights in this film.Tsui Hark's best days are far behind him, much like John Woo. Personally, I think his best films by far are Double Team and Knock Off.The bottom line is Seven Swords is a bit of a bore.