Reviewed by: MrBooth Date: 07/29/2005 Summary: 5/10 - story is just too complicated for a film? Jin Yong's HEAVEN SWORD AND DRAGON SABRE story is spread across 5 volumes, and is a supremely complicated story of the martial arts world. Even with a combined running time of 200 minutes, the two films Chor Yuen directed simply aren't enough to do the full story justice, and unfortunately he does seem to have tried to get the entire thing into the film. The result is a huge cast that must include half the actors Shaw Brothers employed in 1978, and a new character gets introduced at least once every 5 minutes on average as the story goes through all its twists and turns. The result is just too much for the viewer to take in, and not enough time is devoted to any one part of the story to get really absorbed. It feels more like a documentary effort to list all the clans, their relationships, intrigues and betrayals without trying to build narrative tension or emotional resonance. Too many characters and too much plot is not exactly unusual in Chor Yuen's wuxia, but he was never at his best when working from his own scripts (as is the case here) and I think it needed a more nuanced pen than his to get the audience to buy into the super-complicated story. The film(s) must have been expensive, as the production is wonderfully lavish, featuring dozens of those beautifully stylised sets that Chor Yuen wuxia specialised in, and the many many characters are all nicely costumed, and it's all well filmed. Unfortunately the action scenes are a big disappointment and drop the film several marks... they basically all consist of the characters waving their arms about in front of each other in a largely non-threatening manner, then occasionally doing a somersault or jumping past the camera on a trampoline. Very tepid choreography, and not helped by Chor Yuen's decision to film nearly all the scenes in long shot, long take, reducing whatever sense of danger or excitement the choreography might have provided. Many people are already familiar with this story from the Jet Li film KUNG FU CULT MASTER, directed by Wong Jing. I think the latter effort is superior to this in most respects, but it invariably leaves people surprised and frustrated when it finishes on a cliffhanger and they learn that the planned sequel was never made. HS&DS1 covers almost exactly the same part of the story as KFCM (though the details are often significantly different - I don't know which is closer to Jin Yong's original story). At least with the 1978 film there is a Part 2 to finish the tale off though, so frustrated viewers of KFCM may wish to pick it up just to see where the story was (basically) heading :p Reviewer Score: 5

Reviewed by: Michael Kistner Date: 05/17/2005 Summary: 4/5 Entertaining and enjoyable. Great sets and good fight scenes. 4/5

Reviewed by: Sydneyguy Date: 05/01/2005 Summary: Where is Ti LUNG??? Ti Lung is not even in the credits so whats this about Ti Lung? This long and complicated story can not be explained in 2 movies. The movie briefly, and i mean BRIEFLY explains what is going on and then the movie starts at a certain point. With so many story lines and characters, it is hard to figure out who and which side the characters are on. And here lies the problem There i just not enough time to explain what is going on. "kung fu cult master" explained the situation a lot better but this movie feels muddled and difficult to follow I do know the story line of the movie and collect the comics and this is a poor representation of the story, but part 2 is better 5/10

Reviewed by: pjshimmer Date: 04/28/2002 Ti Lung is not the best Hsiao Li and this is by no means the best version of HSDS.

Reviewed by: rzach Date: 07/21/2001 Summary: 20 version, but still the best I am still believe this old version of heaven sword and dragon sabre is the best version ever made. If you recognised Sean Connery as the 007 or Ti Lung as the best flying knive Hsio Li, then Erl Thung Shen is the best Thio Bo Kie. Even 20 year after this movie been released, you still feel that this is the best!!!