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Pick of the indies
Seven Swords
If you haven’t had your fill of Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon-style adventure, then Seven Swords should sate your hunger.
Hong Kong martial arts director Tsui Hark has made a big, solid
film set at the beginning of China’s Qing dynasty –
and this is vital as the new era has issued in new laws banning
martial arts. Villages are at risk, however, by a marauding
band of bounty hunters so how can ordinary folks defend themselves,
much less the two outlaws Wu and Han?
Epic in length, vision and ambition, this is nevertheless an
old fashioned film.
As dynamic as it is and as knock-you-senseless as it is with
stunning visuals and extremely high production values, the story
is still very linear and therefore almost leaving the style
to take precedent over content. It doesn’t quite have the
knockout of Crouching Tiger or any of the more recent films
by Yimou such as House of Flying Daggers or Hero.
But Tsui’s attempt to make a bigger if plainer martial
arts epic has succeeded, as has his idea that the human elements
of those other tales are secondary to the action.
His production design and wardrobe people go overboard to give
the impression of realism in the midst of what is, essentially,
one long drawn-out fight with some gaps in between. |
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