Seven Swords (ScreenDaily Review)
Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 8:06 pmSeven Swords (Qi Jia)
Lee Marshall in Venice 31 August 2005
Dir: Tsui Hark. HK-Chi-S Kor. 2005. 152mins.
Hong Kong auteur Tsui Hark’s most ambitious film to date, Seven Swords makes for an energetic Venice curtain-raiser after the dreary plod of last year’s The Terminal.
The director has talked up Seven Swords as the Saving Private Ryan of martial arts films, of a return to basics and focus on realism.
It’s true that that there is less blatant wirework and CG magical realism than Asian action fans have grown used to of late, eschewing rooftop flights or bamboo grove choreography for the clang of metal on metal and the sheer effort of lifting a heavy bronze blade.
But if this is a martial arts revolution then it’s a timid one. There was at least as much battle grit and sweat in Kill Bill – on one level a parody of the genre – as there is in Hark’s irony-free piece.
The title’s nod at Seven Samurai is unfortunate, as the character development, structural cohesion and moral complexity of Kurosawa’s masterpiece are altogether lacking in this confusing story.
Continued success in the Asian market looks assured following its release earlier this summer. It has become the biggest release this year in China, taking more than $10m, while box office in Hong Kong has been good at just under $1m.
Outside Asia, Hark’s period martial extravaganza is unlikely to break out into the mainstream to the level of say Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which took more than $210m worldwide and was nominated for 10 Oscars, or Hero, which enjoyed receipts of $175m-plus worldwide.
Sales so far include Village Roadshow (Australia), Pathe/DES (France), Sandrew Metronome (Scandinavia), Medusa (Italy), Contender (UK) and Universuum (Germany), with others expected during the autumn festival season (Seven Swords plays Toronto after Venice).
As in the Seven Samurai, one plucky village holds out against authority – here in 17th-century north-western China, with authority represented by an army of merciless bounty hunters who make a living out of enforcing an imperial edict banning martial arts. Their defence comes in the form of seven warriors with seven swords, each with different characteristics.
Led by a punkette general, and wearing face-paint out of Mad Max, the villains – who have names like Dagger Point or Trout In The Mud – are all surface, as they should be.
The only rounded character – indeed of the film as a whole – is chief villain Fire Wind (Sun Honglei); an unstable, tic-ridden, world-weary baddie, as if the Yul Brynner of The King & I had morphed into the Marlon Brando of Apocalypse Now.
In comparison the heroes are so hastily sketched that audiences need a crib sheet to sort them out. Asian audiences will be watching the stars (some of whom, like Lu Yi and Leon Yai, have a crossover music career) and may find the choppy syntax of the film less distracting.
Beyond that, anyone coming out of this film with a clear idea of the properties of each of the seven swords, their names, and the main traits of the heroes that wield them, deserves a prize.
The best advice is not to worry too much about the who, why or what and concentrate instead on the bravura action sequences – including an instant classic wall-climbing fight in a narrow corridor – and Keung Kwok-man’s moody monochrome cinematography.
This works hand in hand with art director Eddy Wong’s atmospheric set design, that owes more to fantasy adventures than faithful historical epic.
Grey, yellow and red are the dominant colours, often isolated and juxtaposed: as in a scene near the beginning where the red of pennants, lanterns and blood stand out against a black-and-white background.
As with the Lord Of The Rings films, the production uses real locations – scattered around China’s remote Xinjiang province, setting of the original novel by Liang Yu-shen – to evoke a world that is recognisably of this earth, but at one remove from reality.
Of the three major settings, the most striking is Da Ma Ying, site of Fire Wind’s half-ruined fortress: rising from the sands of the Gobi desert, this is a place of mythical resonance, evoking lost empires, Tamburlaine and Alexander the Great. It is altogether a fitting home for Fire Wind, a degraded philosopher prince surrounded by drunken, brutish foot-soldiers.
Production company
Film Workshop Co
Co-production companies
Beijing Ciwen Film & TV Production Co
Boram Entertainment
City Glory Pictures
Hong Kong distribution
Mandarin Films Distribution
International sales
Fortissimo Films
Executive producers
Raymond Wong
Hong Bong-chul
Zhang Yong
Producers
Tsui Hark
Lee Joo-ick
Ma Zhongjun
Pan Zhizhong
Screenplay
Tsui Hark
Cheung Chi-sing
Chun Tin-nam
based on the novel by Liang Yu-sheng
Cinematography
Keung Kwok-man
Production design
Eddy Wong
Editor
Angie Lam
Action choreographer
Stephen Tung
Xiong Xinxin
Costume designer
Poon Wing-yan
Music
Kenji Kawai
Main cast
Donnie Yen
Leon Lai
Charlie Young
Sun Honglei
Lu Yi
Kim So-yeun
Lau Kar-leung
Tai laiwu
Duncan Chow
Lee Marshall in Venice 31 August 2005
Dir: Tsui Hark. HK-Chi-S Kor. 2005. 152mins.
Hong Kong auteur Tsui Hark’s most ambitious film to date, Seven Swords makes for an energetic Venice curtain-raiser after the dreary plod of last year’s The Terminal.
The director has talked up Seven Swords as the Saving Private Ryan of martial arts films, of a return to basics and focus on realism.
It’s true that that there is less blatant wirework and CG magical realism than Asian action fans have grown used to of late, eschewing rooftop flights or bamboo grove choreography for the clang of metal on metal and the sheer effort of lifting a heavy bronze blade.
But if this is a martial arts revolution then it’s a timid one. There was at least as much battle grit and sweat in Kill Bill – on one level a parody of the genre – as there is in Hark’s irony-free piece.
The title’s nod at Seven Samurai is unfortunate, as the character development, structural cohesion and moral complexity of Kurosawa’s masterpiece are altogether lacking in this confusing story.
Continued success in the Asian market looks assured following its release earlier this summer. It has become the biggest release this year in China, taking more than $10m, while box office in Hong Kong has been good at just under $1m.
Outside Asia, Hark’s period martial extravaganza is unlikely to break out into the mainstream to the level of say Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which took more than $210m worldwide and was nominated for 10 Oscars, or Hero, which enjoyed receipts of $175m-plus worldwide.
Sales so far include Village Roadshow (Australia), Pathe/DES (France), Sandrew Metronome (Scandinavia), Medusa (Italy), Contender (UK) and Universuum (Germany), with others expected during the autumn festival season (Seven Swords plays Toronto after Venice).
As in the Seven Samurai, one plucky village holds out against authority – here in 17th-century north-western China, with authority represented by an army of merciless bounty hunters who make a living out of enforcing an imperial edict banning martial arts. Their defence comes in the form of seven warriors with seven swords, each with different characteristics.
Led by a punkette general, and wearing face-paint out of Mad Max, the villains – who have names like Dagger Point or Trout In The Mud – are all surface, as they should be.
The only rounded character – indeed of the film as a whole – is chief villain Fire Wind (Sun Honglei); an unstable, tic-ridden, world-weary baddie, as if the Yul Brynner of The King & I had morphed into the Marlon Brando of Apocalypse Now.
In comparison the heroes are so hastily sketched that audiences need a crib sheet to sort them out. Asian audiences will be watching the stars (some of whom, like Lu Yi and Leon Yai, have a crossover music career) and may find the choppy syntax of the film less distracting.
Beyond that, anyone coming out of this film with a clear idea of the properties of each of the seven swords, their names, and the main traits of the heroes that wield them, deserves a prize.
The best advice is not to worry too much about the who, why or what and concentrate instead on the bravura action sequences – including an instant classic wall-climbing fight in a narrow corridor – and Keung Kwok-man’s moody monochrome cinematography.
This works hand in hand with art director Eddy Wong’s atmospheric set design, that owes more to fantasy adventures than faithful historical epic.
Grey, yellow and red are the dominant colours, often isolated and juxtaposed: as in a scene near the beginning where the red of pennants, lanterns and blood stand out against a black-and-white background.
As with the Lord Of The Rings films, the production uses real locations – scattered around China’s remote Xinjiang province, setting of the original novel by Liang Yu-shen – to evoke a world that is recognisably of this earth, but at one remove from reality.
Of the three major settings, the most striking is Da Ma Ying, site of Fire Wind’s half-ruined fortress: rising from the sands of the Gobi desert, this is a place of mythical resonance, evoking lost empires, Tamburlaine and Alexander the Great. It is altogether a fitting home for Fire Wind, a degraded philosopher prince surrounded by drunken, brutish foot-soldiers.
Production company
Film Workshop Co
Co-production companies
Beijing Ciwen Film & TV Production Co
Boram Entertainment
City Glory Pictures
Hong Kong distribution
Mandarin Films Distribution
International sales
Fortissimo Films
Executive producers
Raymond Wong
Hong Bong-chul
Zhang Yong
Producers
Tsui Hark
Lee Joo-ick
Ma Zhongjun
Pan Zhizhong
Screenplay
Tsui Hark
Cheung Chi-sing
Chun Tin-nam
based on the novel by Liang Yu-sheng
Cinematography
Keung Kwok-man
Production design
Eddy Wong
Editor
Angie Lam
Action choreographer
Stephen Tung
Xiong Xinxin
Costume designer
Poon Wing-yan
Music
Kenji Kawai
Main cast
Donnie Yen
Leon Lai
Charlie Young
Sun Honglei
Lu Yi
Kim So-yeun
Lau Kar-leung
Tai laiwu
Duncan Chow