Movie Review: Seven Swords

Tsui Hark's Seven Swords is an insane, glorious movie. The first in a planned series of six (or seven) movies, it's original cut was four hours long- trimmed down to two and a half hours for the theatrical version. It's a total superhero origin story- except it just might be more ambitious than that. It's also Tsui Hark's answer to the recent art wuxia movies- Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger and Zhang Yimou's Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Hero in particular. It's very old-school and at the same time it's trying to do very new things for the Wuxia genre. Is it a success? Partly. Like I said, it's a little bit insane, but it's also glorious. And a little bit too short.

Too short? Two and a half hours, too short? This despite the fact that there were some (many?) in the cinema who thought it was too LONG? Indeed, I suspect the guy sitting next to me during the show fell asleep at some parts. Well, frankly I don't give a damn. This isn't a movie for everyone. It's certainly not what everyone expected Tsui Hark to make- another Once Upon A Time In China or Zu Warriors (the old one). This isn't that movie, folks. This is something completely different.

The movie's far from perfect- in it's current state, it's missing a lot of characterisation (we learn little about the backgrounds of most of our seven heroes) and what character bits that remain are rendered slightly incoherent and a bit clunky as a result. I'm dying to see the four hour version of the film myself as I think it might solve a few (or a lot) of the pacing problems the film has and smoothen out the character development.

But even in it's current state, as a superhero origin kinda film, it fulfills it's basic purpose- to setup the further adventures of our heroes. The film is based on the very first chapter of Liang Yusheng's novel, Seven Swords of Mount Heaven, and Tsui Hark intends to adapt the whole novel in the planned series. As such, this isn't and can't be the meat of the story. The real purpose of this film is to make enough money so that he can make the sequels and I fully expect them to be better than this movie in the same way that say Spider-Man 2 improved on the original in every single way. And guess what, he's already got the go-ahead for at least one more. Mission accomplished.

As I mentioned before, I think of this as Tsui Hark's answer to Art Wuxia. And what's his answer to Art Wuxia? A rather rude symbol in the form of a particular finger outstretched in their general direction. And very specifically in the direction of Hero. Whereas those movies emphasised grace and beauty in motion during their fight scenes and thus were filmed in long takes, this movie's fight scenes are brutal and bloody with limbs flying and blood spurting. The fight scenes are composed of short, fast cuts. They're a little bit jerky, in fact. A bit Ridley Scott, you might say. Sort of like the Gladiator of Wuxia movies, as far as the combat goes. Also a little bit Lord of The Rings- complete with a big siege scene. Except in this case it's not a large fortress that's besieged but a small village (curiously full of martial arts practicioners) that doesn't really hold out for very long in the face of the attack.

Oh and what about Hero? Well, Hero was an extended dialouge between a would be assassin and the Emperor of China and ended with the assassin deciding not to kill the Emperor for the greater good of the country. Very patriotic and all. Seven Swords, on the other hand, has an Emperor (who we don't see by the way- he's saved for future installments) who has issued an edict banning all martial arts in order to quell the seeds of rebellion. He does this by giving monetary rewards for each head of a martial artist that's brought to him- sans body. He allows armies of psychotic madmen to roam the countryside, killing entire villages that harbour martial artists- women and children and all- and then pays them for their heads... even the childrens', though the villains do mention that the Capital isn't too happy about the children bit. Not unhappy enough to stop the wholesale slaughter they're indulging in, though...

The heroes, after dispatching one of these psychotic madmen along with his army (in a final showdown that has some very awesome battle sequences- including a swordfight in a cramped corridor that has the combatants climbing up and down the walls while carving out deep ridges into the walls with their swords as they swing at each other- decide to head to the Capital in order to "talk" to the Emperor and "convince" him to reconsider his edict.

Given the fact that these are seven swordsmen of uncommon skill who've just killed an entire army, I think it's safe to say that they're not just talkin about friendly negotiations here. I'd go so far as to say they're probably going to be using extreme prejudice once they actually make it to the Capital in it. Basically, I think they're very likely going to try and terrorize the Emperor into submission or possibly just kill him.

If that doesn't say F-U to Hero, I don't know what does. Don't get me wrong, I thought Hero was brilliant as were the other Art Wuxia movies, but Tsui Hark's anti-establishment tone here jives better with me than Hero's patriotic one (though Hero's message isn't really as mindlessly patriotic as some may assume it to be).

And what about the look and sound of the movie? The keyword for the look is gritty. Dark red blood on grey-brown sand. There's some gorgeous cinematography here- wide open vistas and all. But mostly with the gritty. Especially for the battle sequences.
The costume and weapon designs are very cool. The Seven Swordsmen are kinda humbly dressed, but the villains are really visually distinctive. The twelve generals of the main villain wear elaborate costumes and face paint that give them a truly menacing appearance. They look like something out a manga, in fact. Plus each of them carries a unique weapon- all of them brutal and seemingly designed to cause as much pain and destruction as possible. A word about the main villain, Fire-Wind (Villains always get the coolest names in Wuxia movies!). He's played by Sun Hong-Lei from Zhang Yimou's The Road Home in a delightfully over the top performance, and he's irredeemably evil. He lives like a king and needs all the money he can get to support his lavish lifestyle. That's all the motivation he needs to carry out all the pillaging and slaughtering that he does during the movie. He'd fit right in with Atilla the Hun and Genghis Khan. Oh and he's even got a wicked-cool evil laugh!

Needless to say, the Seven Swords themselves are very cool. Each of them is unique and creatively designed and lend themselves to really interesting battle sequences. If you've seen the trailer (if you haven't check it out here- just scroll down til you see the post called "The Final Seven Swords Trailer") then you know what each does- except for the Transience sword which is only fully shown in the final battle.

The sound effects are done really well too. In particular, the humming noise that the Dragon sword makes whenever it's unsheathed convincingly conveys it's great power. The music- not so good, unfortunately. Composer Kenji Kawaii has turned in a bit of an underwhelming score here. Nothing very notable. It's neither very bad nor very good. I'd prefer something a little more epic- like the trailer music which is totally absent from the film.

Overall, I'd give the movie a 7 out of 10. It's got a bit too many problems to rate higher than that, but its far from the abject failure that many are claiming it to be. But I can live with that. I'm really looking forward to watching the uncut version- which will hopefully be out on DVD before the end of the year. I think of what I've seen as a preview of that version of the film... and if it lives up to my expectations, it's gonna be a 9/10 kinda movie at least.