The Three Swordsmen (1994)
Reviewed by: dandan on 2007-08-23
Summary: messy swords...
hmm, picked this dvd up for next to nothing in hong kong and, after reading some reviews, i wasn't expecting much from it. the fact that it's an old universe disc, with burnt-in (chinese and english) subs wasn't a good start; the fact that the translation is very poor, combined with there being a ton of almost incomprehensible exposition at the start of the film and the andy lau's character is dressed in white, meaning it is almost impossible to read the subs when he is on-screen, does not help.

there seems to be some kind of tournament scheduled, where siu sam-siu (andy lau), ming kim (brigitte lin) and another fighter are set to compete for the title of the best swordsman. unfortunately, someone disguised as siu has killed the third swordsman and now wham dao (elvis tsui) has been charged with tracking down siu and killing him. siu escapes the clutched of wham, teaming up with an old flame, butterfly (tung wai-wai), and setting off to clear his name, running into an escaped swordsman, two princesses from the mountains and various other people who may, or may not, be involved in the plot to frame him...

although, i may be completely wrong about this...

well, this is a pretty poor affair. andy lau, brigitte lin (in one of her, playing a man with a gruff voice dubbed over her dialogue) and elvis tsui fail to raise this unintelligible mess to the heady heights of average, but i can't say that it's their fault. i can only assume that a better translation would enhance this film, but i can't imagine that it would make it into a film that one might say is good.

still, despite some hokey, blurred, slow-mo, swiftly edited fight sequences, there are a few moments of quite enjoyable wu xia silliness to be enjoyed. i was always a fan of seeing people explode or turn to a cloud of dust, when struck with a sword, and there's a decent amount of such behaviour here. there's also plenty of zipping through the air, some nice 'hair-action' and a couple of moments of reasonable swordplay.

oh, and it also lifts / steals, at least, three tracks from the 'akira' soundtrack...

it is mildly entertaining, because of its convoluted nature and wu xia trappings, but it is, by no means, good.