The Blade (1995)
A young man adopted by a renowned swordsmith, discovers that his real father was killed by a powerful bandit called Lung. Leaving to seek revenge, he runs foul of a group of vicious desert scum, losing his right arm in the process. After being nursed back to health, he eventually learns to compensate for his loss and returns to confront the man who murdered his father.
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A Disappointing Continuation
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
With 'The Blade' I think Hark Tsui did a great and remarkable remake of Cheh Chang's One-armed Swordsman 1967, telling us the story in a more darker way with a surrealist technique. Although there are many additional side stories in the movie, yet Hark Tsui managed to maintain the real story of the one armed swordsman. While Cheh Chang is focused on the martial artists code of law and honor, Hark Tsui tries to picture the harsh life of the people during difficult times when ruthless bandits terrorize everyone. With harsh and darks scenes all foggy and bloody fighting, The Blade is a must watch film for those who love Wu Xia.
i've heard a lot about the inventive camera-work and direction in this movie. i thought both were a messalso some truly terrible acting. the main 'heroine' in the movie is irritating beyond belief and has absolutely nothing useful to contribute in any situation. everything she does or says is stupid, and she generally just seems to mess peoples lives up. if she could fight, i might forgive heroverall all the women in this movie are stereotypical 'broads' in need of a man to save them. and all the men in this movie are muscle bound dim wits capable of saving no onethis is a poor movie, and i urge you to avoid it. watch something like 'the sword of doom' instead, it's much better than this confusing mess of a film.
The great thing about this film (and the sort of thing that upsets people who like seeing martial arts fights where you can see every kick and every punch) is that most of the fighting is just blurs of motion punctuated by shouting and clashing blades. This is what I love in HK fantasies: fight scenes that are so incomprehensible you're left going: huh?Tsui Hark's best example is Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, where the viewer has to actually fill in the blanks for themselves. It's edited in such a way that that the film we see feels like only a portion of the story. In some contexts this technique would be stupid, but in fantasy it's wonderful. It's the inverse of the computer graphics bare-all approach, and it's lucky that we had the HK film industry to provide an alternative to Hollywood in this regard. (I say had, because, since Storm Riders, cg in HK is more prevalent than before.)This approach to fight scenes is impressionistic, and with the final fightscene in Dao it's almost operatic. At no stage do you get a feeling that the fight is actually rational. The use of sound and music in the film is also wonderful, especially in the menacing flashback scene. It's hard to think of a more effective way of setting up a backstory, and gives new life to that tired old cliche, the revenge story.So that's all good. Sometimes, however, the impressionism gets a bit out of hand. Things take on a Wong Kar Wai pretentiousness, like the horrible Ashes of time, where Leslie Cheung sits around feeling sorry for himself for no appreciable reason. In Dao, the voiceover of the female character gets really annoying. Her mutterings only really serve to remind us she is there, as she has only one pivotal scene in the film (where tells the hero his origin story).The film is also a bit over-bloody for my taste, but it certainly leaves one with no illusions about the brutalness of the world in which the film is set.Dao is one of those films that is so strange and vivid it leaves a strong resonance with the viewer long after it is over. It has faults by the barrel, but I'd rather have it and Tsui Hark with us than a legion of James Camerons and Roland Emmerichs.
This movie is special. Yes, it's another HK movie with great demonstrations of martial arts -with swords and blood-, heroism and revenge. Behind the wonderful and very violent fighting sequences, it's more about life, lust and frustrations. Tsui Hark puts unusual sadness in his movie and a strong sexual atmosphere : Valerie Chow is really amazing as a crazy prostitute and Chiu Man Chek is much sexier and a better actor than Jet Li or Chow-Yun Fat. Between the efficiency of Tai-Chi and the melancholy of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Perfect.