Reviewed by: Gaijin84 Date: 04/19/2006 Summary: Decent, but with an uneven plot... The Golden Sword is another Lo Wei wuxia film starring Kao Yuen and the ever-charming Cheng Pei-Pei. Bai Yu Lung (Kao Yuen)'s father mysteriously disappears one night, and for 10 years Bai searches for him in vain. Finally, he decides to head to the far northern part of the country with the hope that he can find a clue in that region. There he meets and befriends Ngai Jin Feng (Cheng Pei-Pei), a vagabond and skilled fighter from the Beggar clan. After he helps her with a local problem, she joins him on his quest to find what happened to his long-lost father. Unfortunately, the story is very uneven and affected my overall enjoyment of the movie. It starts of well enough, with Bai Yu Lung meeting up with Ngai, but suddenly he gets sucked into a mystery about the disappearance of a stash of silver taels along with Ngai. It turns out the silver is in possession of the Beggar Clan, who subsequently wipe out the local bandits. This takes up a good 45 minutes of the film and then, other than Ngai, all the characters disappear as Ngai and Bai journey on again to find his father. I found myself realizing 3/4 of the way through the movie that the initial conflict had absolutely no connection to the current plot. It seems that the initial adventure is simply a device to bring the two together, but it could have been accomplished much more quickly and effectively. Kao and Cheng are solid in their characters but are working with limited resources. The fights are decent, but the use of stunt doubles is quite obvious and made me wonder how many times I was actually seeing Sammo Hung with a basket on his head performing the fights for numerous characters, both male and female. A decent film, but nothing groundbreaking. If you must, watch it for the always entertaining and captivating Cheng Pei-Pei. Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: MrBooth Date: 11/16/2004 Summary: 6.5/10 Another decent Cheng Pei Pei wu xia film from director Lo Wei. Lo Wei's storytelling isn't at its best here, but it's a very nice looking film with a few great scenes. CPP's character is second fiddle to Kao Yuen's, unfortunately. If you like the other Lo Wei/Cheng Pei Pei wu xia pian, you'll probably like this one too. If you didn't like the others, it's very unlikely you'll like this. If you haven't seen one... start with DRAGON SWAMP or THE SHADOW WHIP instead (or just go to the source and watch some King Hu films!). Reviewer Score: 7