The Blade (1995)

Purely Joyful Movie!

Admirable film.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I must tell you that i'm a little bit shocked and really can't believe that nearly no one has fully grasped this one of the most meaningful and prominent films of our time. Everyone criticizing the surface and the effectiveness but in fact truly missing the point what this film is actually about! A little bit of analysis: At first i have to point out that THE BLADE is enormously similar to Sam Peckinpah's shocking masterpiece from the 1971 STRAW DOGS (and a bit to his companion A Clockwork Orange) both films depicting violence as a natural element or something habitual, in other words the film is implying resonating message that we're just animals with big brains and endless violence we can not be rid of. Blade, SD and ACO are fictitious, ambiguous, allegorical and shocking but in reality are very symbolical and showing the true face of humanity that we are all so scared of! I strongly believe there's also somewhere in those films actually the answer if the peace in the world is even feasible. The Blade has so many symbolical meanings that even the fictional violent world the movie takes place in, only prompting us to apply it to ours. Why? Because the world we're living in is also about the survival like in the film (where is everything only simplified and exaggerated for us just to see the true reality of our world, that's the whole trick). The paradoxical, inadvertent and sometimes very futile violence in the film breeding and producing another violence (e.g. On's revenge for his dead father (where's no redemption) or those exposed little kids watching the bloody fight between that monk and bandits, which is if you think about it enormously provocative vestige of how the world must be so cruel when even a monk has become such a violent beast who then will only manifest that little hint of his smile at those small kids as some kind of a symbol of an inspiration for them - which is very morally inverted). Very common thing in our world is also an involuntary or unconscious act that only brings about another killing and death to others - examples: Ding On inadvertently kills the prostitute Iron Head brought to himself, Ling's father is in fact responsible for a lot of hurt to come when he told Ding On the truth about his father. Chiu Man Cheuk's Ding On initially was against the revenge (mind you the scene after the monk is dead) but Iron Head was all for it who also inadvertently divulged the place where they are from to bandits which would lead to another killing at the end at the Foundry, and etc.. The film even mentions things like buying and selling and at the same time showing the dog approaching some chunk of meat planted right in the big bear jaggy trap which ultimately kills him, the scenes like this are only exaggerated just to give us an idea and feeling of how hard it is to make it through in this world but Tsui Hark de-facto made it clear enough when increased or leveled up the whole hardness of the life in this film and showed us the way how to survive which systematically should be only motivating and inspiring for the viewers of this film. Every time you watch this movie you can find more and more connections between this demented world and ours, which is also the powerful and timeless element of The Blade. Not Ding On or Iron Head, it was in fact Ling all along who's the most important character (not so strange that the whole film is also off her point of view) as she was also the only one left at the end of the movie still feeling the love for other people but as we see it's late because there's already no one to return her love. What is so paradoxical is that everyone (save for her) in the film was actually neglecting the most important and powerful weapon for this violent world "love", what they were doing was absolutely futile, fruitless, nothing for anyone things which means they ended up as individuals with the complete lack of affection and love for anyone and by this ended up only producing another ceaseless violence that would lead only to downfall of the whole mankind, there was no end to this. So everyone could take the film Blade as the warning or advice - what is virtually the most important for our world!! I have a more extensive analysis (too long for these comments) of this masterpiece, check out my thread here on The Blade message board!

i unfortunately could not enjoy this film as it could have been thanks to the great enemy of kung fu fans: dodgy subtitles. thus the characters spouted lines that translated as "why did father my die so sad". i know, but anyhow the rest of the film is jaw dropping. little to no wire work, and some of the most inventive martial art choreography ever seen make this a special treat. worlds away from the graceful, but impact-less fighting of CTHD and HOFD, this is nasty, characters are surrounded and chopped to pieces heroes get beaten in all sorts of nasty ways. the editing and camera-work seems to have influenced gladiator, with choppy nasty hits.the plot is rudimentary, something about sword-makers, evil bald men who probably eat little children and have swords with more gadgets than 4 James bond movies, and two badass friends who kick said guys bald ass. this has no political subtext, no unnecessary complications, just good old fashioned fighting, worth checking out

The great thing about this film (and the sort of thing that upsets people who like seeing martial arts fights where you can see every kick and every punch) is that most of the fighting is just blurs of motion punctuated by shouting and clashing blades. This is what I love in HK fantasies: fight scenes that are so incomprehensible you're left going: huh?Tsui Hark's best example is Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, where the viewer has to actually fill in the blanks for themselves. It's edited in such a way that that the film we see feels like only a portion of the story. In some contexts this technique would be stupid, but in fantasy it's wonderful. It's the inverse of the computer graphics bare-all approach, and it's lucky that we had the HK film industry to provide an alternative to Hollywood in this regard. (I say had, because, since Storm Riders, cg in HK is more prevalent than before.)This approach to fight scenes is impressionistic, and with the final fightscene in Dao it's almost operatic. At no stage do you get a feeling that the fight is actually rational. The use of sound and music in the film is also wonderful, especially in the menacing flashback scene. It's hard to think of a more effective way of setting up a backstory, and gives new life to that tired old cliche, the revenge story.So that's all good. Sometimes, however, the impressionism gets a bit out of hand. Things take on a Wong Kar Wai pretentiousness, like the horrible Ashes of time, where Leslie Cheung sits around feeling sorry for himself for no appreciable reason. In Dao, the voiceover of the female character gets really annoying. Her mutterings only really serve to remind us she is there, as she has only one pivotal scene in the film (where tells the hero his origin story).The film is also a bit over-bloody for my taste, but it certainly leaves one with no illusions about the brutalness of the world in which the film is set.Dao is one of those films that is so strange and vivid it leaves a strong resonance with the viewer long after it is over. It has faults by the barrel, but I'd rather have it and Tsui Hark with us than a legion of James Camerons and Roland Emmerichs.

Blade is a Hong Kong movie directed by Hsui Hark. It has a very interesting premise and defined characters. What it lacked was a bigger budget and cohesion. The story centers around the principles of revenge. It starts with the narration of a woman who talks like the two young men at the sword factory, On and Iron Head, will end up contesting for her hand in marriage. As one previous reviewer stated, the narrator is somewhat annoying. However the story is recounted how On is rewarded with ownership of the sword factory. The owner explains to On how he had raised him after his father was murdered by a mysterious tattooed swordsman who could fly. On wants to avenge his father. As the new owner of the factory the other employees dislike him except for Iron Head and the young woman. The young woman, the narrator is captured by bandits and On comes to her aid, and in the process ends up losing his hand in a very ugly trap. On eventually escapes and disappears. He is nursed back to health by a young spunky woman named Blackhead. Meanwhile Iron Head and the narrator go looking for On. On their journey Iron Head becomes enchanted by this crazy prostitute played by the extremely sexy Valerie Chow. When Chow is semi raped by a bandit, Iron Head rescues her and then precedes to take advantage of her. This of course disgusts the narrator. This action by Iron Head makes no sense. This is what I mean by lack of cohesion. Anyway the tattooed swordsman and his bandits shows up at On and Blackheads farmhouse and torture them and burn their house. Later, On finds a book which instructs him how to use his father's sword. The film wraps up nicely with the vengeful showdown between On and the Tattooed Swordsman. Iron Head and the rest of the sword factory employees get to help fight the other bandits. This film could have been great, but it looked like the editing and filming were done at a breakneck pace and that is why certain parts lack cohesion. I think a 7 out of 10 is a good rating. Valerie Chow I give a 10 out of 10. She is ABSOLUTELY STUNNING!!!