Seven Swords

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Seven Swords
Directed by Tsui Hark
Produced by Tsui Hark
Written by Cheung Chi-Sing
Hun Tin Naam
Liang Yusheng
Starring Donnie Yen
Leon Lai
Charlie Yeung
Music by Kenji Kawai
Cinematography Kwok-Man Keung
Distributed by Eng Wah Cinema (SG)
Weinstein Company (USA)
Release date(s) 25 July 2005
Running time 153 min
Language Mandarin
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Seven Swords (Simplified Chinese: 七剑; Traditional Chinese: 七劍; pinyin: Qī Jiàn) is a 2005 Hong Kong film directed by Tsui Hark and adapted from renowned Wuxia writer Liang Yusheng.

Unlike most wuxia movies Seven Swords makes little use of wire fu, as Tsui Hark claimed he wanted to bring the wuxia genre more down to earth. Nevertheless, there is still much martial arts action as choreographed by acclaimed action director Lau Kar-Leung (Drunken Master II).

The movie was the opening film to the 2005 Venice Film Festival.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the mid-1600s, the Manchurians have taken over sovereignty of China and established the Qing Dynasty. While many nationalist revolts still brew within the martial artists' community, the newly set-up government immediately imposes a Martial Arts Ban, forbidding the practice of martial arts altogether in order to gain control and order. Wind Fire, a surrendered military official from the previous dynasty, sees this as an opportunity to make a fortune for himself by helping to execute the new law. Greedy, cruel, and immoral, Wind Fire ravages the North-western China, and his next goal is to attack the final frontier, Martial Village.

Fu Qingzhu, a retired executioner from the previous dynasty, feels the need to put a stop to this brutality and sets out to save Bowei Fortress. He brings Wu Yuanyin and Han Zhiban from the village with him to the Heavenly Mountains to seek help from Master Shadow-Glow, a hermit who is a master of swords and leads a group of disciples of great swordsmanship. Master Shadow-Glow agrees to help, and orders his four disciples to go. Together with Chu Zhaonan, Yang Yunchong, Mulong, and Xin Longzi, the "Seven Swords" is formed and their heroic journey begins. As they lead the entire village to the road of a safer place, they begin to encounter mysterious confusion. Food and water are poisoned, and trails of escape are marked with signs leading the enemy to them. They soon realize that there is an undercover spy, and the Seven Swords must identify him/her before Wind Fire's army gets to them. Between this narrow gap of life and death, the situation is further complicated by the blossoms of love.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Notes

  • The original film was approximately four hours long, but was edited down to 153 minutes.
  • Viewers of the movie felt the film had gaps due to the editing and wanted to see the extended version, but no such version has been released.
  • Hong Kong Commercial Radio FM 903 has a radio drama based on the film while the movie was still in promotion.
  • The movie is a first of a triology to cover the stretch of the novel(s)Liang Yusheng wrote.
  • Depending how far Tsui Hark intends to cover the span of the Seven Swords(men) including related novels such as Bride with White Hair (part of the canon), Tsui Hark can possibly get 3-9 movies or 2-3 TV series out of Liang Yusheng's work.
  • A Hong Kong TV series was made based on Seven Swords, but named Seven Swordsmen with a variety cast of well known HK and China actors such as Vincent Zhao , Ada Choi , Ray Lui , Li Xiaoran , Patrick Tam , Leung Kar Yan.

[edit] External links

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