Reviewed by: pjshimmer Date: 09/26/2005 Summary: Above average Swift Sword is the story of SWORD STAINED WITH ROYAL BLOOD under a disguised name. Why Shaw Brothers and independent kung fu films often do this is not clear to me, since what they are doing is essentially ripping off the original work of authors like Louis Cha, and many local viewers at the time, I imagine, are familiar enough with the story that they can detect the similarities. Off to a great start, the film soon loses momentum, and the quality of rest of the movie is highly questionable. The main problem is the stiff, expressionless acting. Surely I don't expect much from this type of production, and I am more than used to its standards, but the dialogues are much more monotone than the average Shaw flick. It's like Wong Yue wants to make sure to deliver all his lines in our face. Crossing dressing is featured prominently in many period flicks, and it's certainly not missing here. Our hero has lived with a family of girls for the past 2 years; yet he cannot detect the feminine qualities of a girl in front of him. It's also more embarrassingly shot than ever: the guy and the girl smile at each other and it's the dorkiest gesture you've ever seen. On to the good things: it does feature some Beautiful landscape, with a decent amount of outdoor scenes. Also the scene at the beginning expressing Swift Swordsman's agony has great style. But the rest of the film could not sustain the momentum. [7/10]

Reviewed by: MrBooth Date: 08/19/2005 Summary: 4/10 - bad, but perhaps enjoyable anyway I like swordplay films because they're pretty and melodramatic, and have lots of fighting in them. As such, I can't bring myself *not* to like SWIFT SWORD even though it's clearly crap, because it's a pretty swordplay film with melodrama and fighting - and hence guarantees a certain amount of entertainment :) It certainly isn't "good" in the technical sense though, and the fault lies almost entirely with Ho Meng Hua's direction, which is almost comically inept in so many ways that you almost wish the film were dubbed into English so you could laugh at it without feeling a twinge of regret that it wasn't meant to be funny. The story is not inherently bad, but the treatment certainly is. I'm not sure if Ho actually got worse at directing as he aged, or simply never improved whilst the rest of the world moved on. If SWIFT SWORD had been released in 1964, say, I would certainly be saying what a fantastic film it was and how visionary the director was. If it had come out even four years later, I'd have said it was quite good though not on a par with the great works of King Hu and Chang Cheh. Coming out in 1980 though, it definitely doesn't stand up to its contemporaries. Ho took a 12 year break from directing shortly after this came out, so he may have had an excuse like ill health to explain the film's shortcoming... or he may have just seen the finished film and realised it was time to call it a day! And yet, even after accepting that it is a crap film, I can't deny that I enjoyed it! It is very pretty, and there's some quite good fights... and some moments were so dumb or poorly shot that I couldn't help giggle a little! At worst, it's less than 90 minutes of your life gone anyway :p Reviewer Score: 4