| Seven Swords | |
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Theatrical poster |
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| Traditional | 七劍 |
| Simplified | 七剑 |
| Mandarin | Qī Jiàn |
| Cantonese | Cat1 Gim3 |
| Directed by | Tsui Hark |
| Produced by | Tsui Hark Ma Zhongjun Lee Joo-ick Pan Zhizhong |
| Screenplay by | Tsui Hark Cheung Chi-sing Chun Tin-nam |
| Story by | Liang Yusheng |
| Starring | Donnie Yen Leon Lai Charlie Yeung Sun Honglei Lu Yi Kim So-yeon |
| Music by | Kenji Kawai |
| Cinematography | Keung Kwok-man Herman Yau Choi Shung-fai |
| Editing by | Angie Lam |
| Studio | Film Workshop |
| Distributed by | Mandarin Films Distribution Co. Ltd. Eng Wah Cinema The Weinstein Company |
| Release date(s) | July 29, 2005 |
| Running time | 153 minutes |
| Country | Hong Kong |
| Language | Mandarin Cantonese Korean |
| Budget | US$18,000,000 |
Seven Swords is a 2005 Hong Kong wuxia film adapted from Liang Yusheng's novel Qijian Xia Tianshan. It was produced and directed by Tsui Hark, and starred Donnie Yen, Leon Lai, Charlie Yeung, Sun Honglei, Lu Yi and Kim So-yeon. It was used as the opening film to the 2005 Venice Film Festival and as a homage to Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954).
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In the mid-17th century, the Manchus take over sovereignty of China and establish the Qing Dynasty. While nationalistic sentiments start brewing within the martial artists' community (jianghu), the Qing government immediately imposes a ban forbidding the common people from practising martial arts. Fire-Wind sees the new law as an opportunity to for himself to make a fortune and offers to help the government execute the new rule. Greedy, cruel and immoral, Fire-Wind ravages northwest China with his army, killing thousands of pugilists as well as innocent civilians. His next goal is to attack Martial Village, which houses a large number of martial artists.
Fu Qingzhu, a retired executioner who served during the previous Ming Dynasty, feels an urge to stop Fire-Wind's brutality, and he sets forth to save Martial Village. He brings with him two young villagers, Han Zhibang and Wu Yuanying, to Mount Heaven to seek help from Shadow-Glow, a reclusive master swordsman and sword-forger. Shadow-Glow allows his four students (Chu Zhaonan, Yang Yuncong, Xin Longzi and Mulang) to accompany the trio on their quest. He also gives each of them a special sword he forged, and the seven of them title themselves "Seven Swords". The Seven Swords return to Martial Village in the nick of time and succeed in driving away Fire-Wind's soldiers. In order to buy time for the villagers to prepare for an evacuation, the Seven Swords advance to Fire-Wind's base and cause chaos. During the raid, Chu Zhaonan encounters Fire-Wind's Korean slave girl, Green Pearl, and brings her along as they make their escape.
As the party makes its exodus, strange things start happening along the way. Their food and water supplies are mysteriously poisoned, and their trail is marked by signs leading the enemy to them. The Seven Swords realize that there is a spy among them and understand that they must eliminate him / her before Fire-Wind catches up. Green Pearl immediately becomes a suspect because she does not speak their language. The situation is further complicated by a romantic affair between Chu Zhaonan and Green Pearl. Once, Green Pearl leads Chu into a trap unintentionally and manages to escape despite suffering serious injuries. Chu is captured by Fire-Wind, and Green Pearl manages to inform the other swordsmen before she dies.
The other six swordsmen travel to Fire-Wind's base and engage him in a fierce battle to rescue Chu Zhaonan. During the Swords' absence, the spy, Qiu Dongluo, reveals his identity and begins killing the unsuspecting villagers systematically. He is discovered by the village chief's daughter, Liu Yufang, and eventually killed by her. However, Liu is traumatized by the experience and turns hysterical. Meanwhile, the Seven Swords defeat and slay Fire-Wind, forcing his army to retreat temporarily. The swordsmen return to the hideout, only to find that all the villagers have been killed, except for Liu Yufang and the children. Han Zhibang calms Liu down and decides to stay behind and protect the survivors. The Seven Swords realize that the only way to save the jianghu is to persuade the emperor to withdraw the Martial Arts Ban. Liu tells Han that she can take care of the survivors and Han rides away to join his comrades as they travel towards the capital city.
The film, the first of a planned six part film franchise. The role of Chu Zhaonan was in fact offered to Korean actor Song Seung-heon with a reported pay of US$400,000 (It is unknown whether Donnie Yen was paid this amount for the role). Both Song Seung-heon and Leon Lai (who was given the role of Yang Yuncong due to his performance in The Sword of Many Lovers and Tsui Hark said that he was "hoping to see another side of him (Leon Lai).") trained in horseback riding and swordplay for their respective roles but Song Seung-heon dropped out near the start of the filming period in order to work on other projects. Donnie Yen was offered the role of Chu Chaonan after Song Seung-heon dropped out, Yen after "understanding the gravity" of the situation took up the role with no hesitations. Actor Lu Yi has said once that he will never do a wuxia / martial arts project ever again but when he was offered the role of Han Zhibang he immediately took it up due to the all-star cast tied to the project and that he will probably never get another chance to work with such a strong cast ever again. The role of Prince Dokado was at first offered to mainland Chinese actor Hu Jun but was turned down for some unknown reason, and was later offered to veteran actor Wang Xueqi but he apparently also turned it down as well and it eventually went to Hong Kong actor Michael Wong. Actor Li Yuan auditioned for a role as one of the Seven Swords and was even picked by Tsui Hark himself but owing to some commercial reasons, the role was given to a more prominent actor instead. During the shooting of the ending finale fight Donnie Yen accidentally injured actor Sun Honglei near the corner of his eye mistaking him for a trained martial artist. Sun was rushed from Xinjiang to a Beijing hospital on the night of 7 December. Sun immediately returned to the set a day later, insisting on finishing his scenes, and his eyesight was not effected. The production manager and scriptwriter of Seven Swords, Cheung Chi-sing, revealed that the initial cut made by Angie Lam was four hours long. However, the distributors were worried that such a lengthy running time would limit screening arrangements and affect box office performance, so Tsui Hark re-edited it to two versions - 150 minutes and 120 minutes. Finding the 120 minutes version suffering from underdeveloped relationships, the investors opted for the 150 minutes (2.5 hours) version for the theatrical run.
Tsui Hark intended Seven Swords to be a hexalogy, however the prospects for the second installment have not come to fruition. In 2008, Tsui was known to be still developing the script for the sequel in between production and/or direction of other projects; the actual release and production for the sequel had yet to officially be announced. It is believed that Tsui is completing scripts for both the second and third installments of the film to complete the hexalogy in successive development and production.
As of 2011, there has been no news of Seven Swords at all, and there is speculation that it would not be completed as planned. The last known news about the film was in its pre-production phase between 2007-2008, yet neither Tsui Hark nor anyone attached to the film made any statement of commitment to the planned hexalogy for about 3-4 years. While unconfirmed, it is believed the film has been stalled or quietly scrapped due to lack of interest in completing the story.
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