10.11.06
Seven Swords 七剑
Seven Swords – 2005
You get the feeling there is so much more to this story and its characters than revealed by the film. In fact the original edit was 4 hours and it is based on a large book.
The Qing Dynasty bans martial arts completely to increase order. A cruel general called Wind Fire seeks to profit from this by using his army to kill as many martial arts practitioners as possible for money. One last village remains and due to a series of events gains the aid of the powerful seven swords (seven warriors each with a cool unique sword and style). They seek to lead the whole village out of harms way so that they can confront Wind Fire without having to worry about keeping villages alive in a huge battle scenario, but all does not go to plan. Some other stuff is going on too involving romance, a Korean slave girl and such.
I did not really enjoy it too much. It has some weak sub-plots (maybe rushed versions of good plots from the novel) and some far-fetched moments usually forgiveable in martial arts movies. No single character stands out. Even the main bad guy seems rather lame. The final fight between Wind Fire and Dragon (I think) goes on and on and you are wondering if a freakin sword is ever gonna penetrate flesh.
However, it looks fantastic with fine cinematography, fairly interesting fight scenes (without the wires) and great costumes. The characters have cool names like Transience and Celestial Beam...mmmm Celestial Beam. It might be worth a look if you are a hardcore fan of East Asian film. 4.5/10
