Tsui Hark tells the story of seven defenders of justice standing against the minions of an evil ruler of the Qing Dynasty. An evil mercenary general named Fire-Wind has killed hundreds in support of the Qing Emperor's ban on martial arts. Now seven peasants, each a great martial artist, ban together to defeat the evil Fire-Wind. Yada, yada, yada. The story is just as comic-book-ish as it sounds with some interminable battle scenes. Your enjoyment will be limited by your capacity to watch people try to carve each other up.

Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10

As many will be aware, Tsui Hark is one of the most respected names in Hong Kong action films. He is producer of three series of action films: A CHINESE GHOST STORY, A BETTER TOMORROW, and ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA. The latter he directed. His latest is SEVEN SWORDS, shot as a four-hour epic film. The version I saw was 130 minutes and it felt long at that. The source of the story is the novel SEVEN SWORDSMEN FROM MOUNT TIAN, by Liang Yu- sheng. The story has already been produced as a television series in seventy-four chapters.

The setting is feudal China in the 1660s. The cruel Qing emperor has forbidden martial arts. His chief general is Fire-Wind who enforces the laws of the emperor with utmost barbarity and collects a reward for every law-breaker he kills. He has gotten quite rich this way. Heroes arise among the peasants to resist the evil rule. It seems there are seven divine swordsmen with divine swords on Mount Tian. (Well, six divine swordsmen and one divine swordswoman.) The seven defenders assemble and defend the people. (Why do heroes so often come in packs of sevens? Not six. Not eight.)

One of the heroes, Chu, decides he likes the Korean woman that Fire-Wind is keeping as his private stock. She is Green Pearl--probably not her real name--and Chu decides he likes Fire-Wind's taste if nothing else. He steals Green Pearl. But as Green Pearl is a Korean, the Chinese peasants are lees than keen to welcome her. Each of the seven defenders of good has his own unique characteristics. One refuses to kill, for example. He defeats his enemies without the luxury of killing. Each of the swords is odd in some way. One of the swords slips through the hilt and then has a point at the other end, confusing enemies no end.

In Asia there are many viewers who are familiar with the novel that the film is based on and the TV-series. The story is difficult to follow. Western audiences will be more dependent on the subtitles and they do not give all the support that might be desired, at least in the print I saw.

Some of the visual effects leave something to be desired. A cannon that is pointed at the ground when it goes off floats away like Peter Pan. Some particularly obvious wirework is used to contravene those tiresome laws of physics. So the enhanced martial arts bear about the same relation to real martial arts that professional wrestling bears to Olympic wrestling.

That is not to imply it does not require a great deal of skill and grace to look good at the end of a wire, but it should not be confused with real martial arts or real anything. Various visual stunts are used in the photography. There are scenes that are in black and white with one object in colour, an effect familiar from ZENTROPA and from SIN CITY.

It is not clear whether this story will play better in Asia where audiences are familiar with the story or here where they are not. Rumour has it that the film is not doing as well as hoped in Asia and is getting a cool reception. Here it is over two hours of action that after the first hour becomes more numbing than exciting. The story is a little confused and hard to follow, though better subtitling might help there.

Some of the plot is a little familiar and borrowed from better films including THE GUNS OF NAVARONE. Still, there is some nearly majestic photography. This film may have a hard time competing for an audience now used to martial arts films of the beauty of those of director Zhang Yimou.

I would rate SEVEN SWORDS a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.

Mark R. Leeper

Copyright 2005 Mark R. Leeper