Check out "Duel to the Death" or any of the 5 Venoms and other films directed by Chang Cheh.<br><br>Magic-8<br>

ASHES OF TIME is about as good and as epic as it gets (though it's a very arty movie not to everybody's tastes). Though you could go back to King Hu's A TOUCH OF ZEN for a great swordsman epic that was a big influence on Ang Lee.<br><br><br><br>

FYI...the theme song is sung by Roman Tam. <br><br>Silver Fox

Yeah, Roman Tam is great. At least one of the 3 audio tracks on the DVD has a different instrumental theme song playing, though.<br><br>

Tsui harks 'the blade', another remake of the sb one armed swordsman. It stars the guy who went on to play wong fei hong in the once upon a time in china series(4+5). no matter how many swordplay films I see its still my favorite.

"The blade" belongs to my favorite-swordplayfilms as well! I still have the old VHS-edition with the title "Blade Of Vengeance" (original chinese dub though ). They changed the name "The Blade" to "Blade of Vengeance" in Europe becuase it might confuse people thinking it was a american movie with the same name, at least thats what I heard.

balstino wrote:I see John Woo directed Last Hurrah for Chivalry, I might have to give that a viewing!!

One cool bit of trivia about 'Last Hurrah...' is that in the film 'A Better Tomorrow', Chow Yuen Fat's character was based on the drunk wandering swordsman character in 'Last Hurrah...'

As far as sword epics, 'The Blade' is very good. It is very dark and viceral. 'Butterfly and Sword' is great, 'Blade of Fury' is also quite good. I just saw 'house of Flying Daggers' and I really enjoyed it too. I thought that the sword fighting scenes were superior to those in 'Hero'.

Another cool sword film is 'What Price Survival?'. It is particularly cool because all the characters are dressed in 30's style garb, long black overcoats and they all wield swords. Sometimes the music doesn't quite match the fights, but it is a nice change of pace in setting for a sword film.

Well a lot of good films were mentioned. but you said "epic" which to me means something on a grander scale. If you want a true epic story I suggest seeing The Water Margin and its sequel All Men are Brothers.

Now if you weren't being literal when you said epic and just meant a good film consisting of both action and superior story then you must see the following films.

Last Hurrah for Chivalry
One-Armed Swordsman
The Blade (A Remake of One-Armed Swordsman)
The Swordsman Trilogy (Especially 1 & 2)

My favourite swordplay movies have got to be:

Crouching Tiger
Ashes of Time
The Blade
Moon Warriors
House of Flying Daggers
Azumi (A japanese swordplay movie, excellent)
Princess Blade (Choreographed by Donnie Yen, excellent Japanese movie)
Hero
One-Armed Swordsman and other movies too.

I'd have to go with the Dragon Inn remake. Of all the swordsman films I've seen, this is probably my favorite.

best old classic swordplay movie
if you don't mind b/w I would say 'buddah palm episode 5' it comes in a box set.

it is about shek kin (the villan who played with bruce lee in enter the dragon) plays the bad guy (as usual and the best)

He restore his lost leg by killing a good martial artist and learned the secret behind it where he can convert this normal prostetic leg into a huge king size leg and go around killing innocent people to rule the country. toward the end you will see lots of nice special effect. the movie is a + but unfortunate it is bw. it is about the mid 50's

shek kin is one of the old classic movie's best villan actor in hk movie history, when he is found playing a good guy that movie is disappointment but when he is the bad guy those movies are great!!!! he is the greatest actor for villan role in hk movie history.

a must

There are so many great sword epics, before you start drifting into flying guillotine films and whip films.... but I digress.
i recall one sword epic that I loved (and haven't seen for some years now) was "The Swordsmen of Double Flag Town" directed by He Ping back in 1991.
It was powerful stuff, set in the 'wild' west of China...worth a look for sure.

As far as sword epics, LONE WOLF AND CUB 1-6 takes the cake for me six films, each one better than the previous. not really an HK movie, but influenced by it and vice versa, just a phenominal sword film!

closley followed by DUEL TO THE DEATH and TOUCH OF ZEN would have to be in there somewhere.

Try out Last Hurrah For Chivalry, my personal favorite this far. I like it even better than Duel To The Death, I prefear the more detailed in movement kind of swordplay.

Yeah I'd go with Dragon Inn from '92 and Swordsman 2.

But what about Come Drink With Me? and the sequel Golden Swallow? Wow!

My best swordplay (epic) would be:


Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1978) - Dir: John Woo, Act: Damian Lau


The Sword (1980) - Dir: Patrick Tam, Act: Adam Cheng


Ashes Of Time (1994) - Dir: Wong Kar-Wai, Act: Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Tony Leung Ka-Fai, Brigitte Lin, Jackie Cheung


The Blade (1995) - Dir: Tsui Hark, Act: Zhao Wen-Zhou, Xiong Xin-Xin


Hero (2002) - Dir: Zhang Yimou, Act: Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Zhang Ziyi, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai

//KeLLoGs

balstino wrote:Thanks very much people. Taking into account all you've said, I'm ordering Ashes of Time today!

I hear the print on both major releases of AoT is poor. There are rumours that a new much imporved one is in the works. I'm certianly holding off until then.

Someone mention Azumi above but I thought the fighting (as with a quite a few Japanese samurai films) is of the slash, next opponent, slash, etc. variety and Azumi needs it to carve through quite so many oppenents in one film!! Love the film though

Kitamura does better swordplay in the final battle of Versus (at least as far as I'm concerned).

I think I have to agree with you on both of your points there, Emperor. The Tai Seng release of Ashes of Time that I saw wasn't a very good print while I enjoyed Azumi, I wouldn't call it a great swordsman flick. If I had to choose from my favorite Japanese swordsman movies, I'd definitely have to go with the old Zatoichi movies. As far as good dvd quality goes, I've been ordering most of my movies from www.yesasia.com and the Korean releases are of pretty high quality. I definitely recommend them if you have an all region dvd player.

My favourite swordplay films at the moment are:

RETURN OF THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN
THE CRIMSON CHARM
THE LADY HERMIT
HEROES OF SUNG
LAST HURRAH FOR CHIVALRY
THE LADY ASSASSIN
SECRET SERVICE OF THE IMPERIAL COURT

the latest swords movie is SEVEN SWORDS.