Die sieben Schwerter

I agree with the above (or below) reviewer, the film was excellent, i just got home from watching it at the cinema. The characters were great and the story (U NEED TO PAY ATTENTION TO IT) is really good, the only issue i had was that it seemed to jump, like say one second the characters are doing one thing and the next there's a whole new bunch of characters and your like- well where in hell did they come from, and sometimes i found links silly, its like scenes were cut our for necessity, but it didn't necessarily aid the film. please watch it and when i comes out on DVD no doubt it'll have a bunch of deleted scenes, but its really worth seeing. I went with my Nan and even she enjoyed it. Now what does that say!?

I walked in to the theater with a big hope that this film will be, at least, the same quality as Once Upon a Time in China. To my disappointment, it is a totally different film - in a bad way.

When I saw the opening sequence I began to feel that Tsui Hark has been influenced by modern pop culture and tried to target new audiences - the young ones. The way he dressed his characters are very much like what I saw on those RPG games (thick make up, big weapons, cute girls/ cool heroes, etc...), and I think he succeed in this department. I amazed with the amount and look of the swords and weapons exhibited in this film - the whistling sword is my favorite one!! :) Too bad, good production design doesn't supported with strong storyline. I think there's too much character in the film that makes it hard which one to focus on. To be fair, it is also affected by the poor translation that, somehow, damage the film's flow.

So, as an entertainment, i think Seven Sword is a good film to watch; but if you wish to see something more serious like Tsui Hark's old films i have to say that don't put too much hope on this one...

how many years has tsui hark been plodding along? and still he turns in this solid effort while the film industry in HK are still going down hill at the box offices.

yet he goes out to the XinJiang wilderness and do this 7 swords - an ensemble cast from an Chinese paper pop wuxia column written in the 50s. for what you have to wonder? fame... fortune ..love of the movies? could be .. or maybe more.

this film is meticulous, well told, well styled, with an interesting choice in action director to boot: the old timer, Lau Kar-Leung, who is not a specialist in sword play. why again? meticulous in the constant mix of medium and close-ups -- his style, and washes these with occasional wides. here he adds the constant flash-backs. meticulous in color control, lighting, the heat of the battle, the heart of the story.

His movies are kind of a Chinese comic book; or the Chinese science fiction. it is arguably for the Chinese spirit, documents upon documents of the Chinese mind set, the hopes and dreams in the culture (because of suppressions?), ideals and philosophies and sustainment of what maybe to him -- that are Chinese? and yet universal at the same time? i'm reaching sure. but i'm Chinese after all.

Tsui Hark's 'Chat Gim' is visually wonderful. The breathtaking and landscape, the beautiful set design and colourful frame, the brilliant composition of images, the mesmerizing cinematography and skilled editing superbly come together. Hark parallel's good vs evil and beautiful vs awful very well. He clearly takes his inspiration from the masterworks of Kurosawa (even though this film is an adaptation) and, in my opinion, produces something better than the likes of Ang Lee's overrated 'Wo Hu Cang Long'.

The only minor drawback, I'd say, is that the story is not anything new and it is not as impactive as Kurosawa's work. Then again, Hark manages to bring his own style and give it a unique presentation and 'Chat Gim' by no means is pretentious piece of work. The subplots fit well together and the characters are interesting. Perhaps a few could have been further developed? However, the actors do an adequate job. The fight scenes are not too many but they're appropriately set within the context of the story. They are very well choreographed and do not look over the top as is the case in many films ('Wo Hu Cang Long' being an example of such). Unlike other films of this genre, this one is very human.

It's a bit funny how I got hold of the DVD. My brother owned it and I was teasing him that I'll take the DVD and keep it (he gets very irritated when I do that) and to my surprise he told me that I can have it. Now I'm glad I get to keep the film. Hark put a lot of heart in the making of this beautiful film. It's certainly one of the better films from the Wuxia genre (one of the best I've seen so far). It's not only visually pleasing, it has a heart of gold :).

With this film, the Asians seem to have reclaimed the "Seven Samurai" plot line but here the seven are somewhat haphazardly chosen (since the skill lies not with the person itself but the particular sword he or she brandishes, hence the title). However, by concentrating on the romantic complications in which a few of the main characters become embroiled, some of the warriors are kept too much in the background…but the leader of the seven is as unassuming as Takashi Shimura had been in SEVEN SAMURAI (1954), while the chief villain is flamboyantly played in the manner of Eli Wallach from THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960)! There is no denying the fact that its mainstay are the epic scope of the production itself (highlighting the meticulous period detail) and the elaborate action sequences which, thankfully, are rarely implausible - as most actioners from Asia (even the more critically lauded ones) tended to be of late! Apparently, the film (which runs for more than 2½ hours) was trimmed down from an even longer version; though the IMDb doesn't mention this, a Maltese friend of mine who's a veritable Asian-film nut assured me of it…and, in fact, the narrative did feel kind of choppy to me!