Muyeong geom

Now I'll start off by saying that there is no reason to compare this movie to the Asian blockbusters such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or Hero etc. It doesn't matter if you've seen them or not because I think this movie has it's own atmosphere and feel to it. I guess it's because this film is Korean. There is a distinct difference between Korean and other Asian action movies. They have their own style of making these fantastic action/epic/drama movies. Another great Korean movie in the same veins is Musa The Warrior, so if you've seen it you have some idea what to expect. Some other comment stated that there are some weird comedic features in the fight scenes, but I wouldn't point that out in the review. It was only one short scene and that's all she wrote. On the contrary I found this movie to be quite serious in the whole. Though everyone would say there wasn't much of a plot I answer; There is an adequate plot to carry this movie without a problem, it is after all made for entertaining purposes, not for the Oscar nomination.

Now more about the movie. The fighting is mostly sword-fighting. There are a few more exotic arms with some of the fighters too like bows or poles. The fights were made watcher friendly in a way that you can actually see what is happening in the fights all the time. So it's not just a clinging sound and a million swordstrikes per second where you can't tell which sword belongs to who. So you can see every small detail in the fights which is in my opinion definitely a good thing. And yes, there is a lot of flying in the movie, but used much more tastefully than for example in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The fight choreography in general was amazing. Saw many moves that I hadn't seen before in similar films. The actors were good, especially the leading actress was very convincing. When I watched this film, I had been bored out of my mind all day and was about to fall to sleep. NOT after the movie started rolling. I was glued to my seat from start to end. Summary: Good action and choreography, good acting and very, very entertaining.

"Shadowless Sword" was one of my favorite wuxia movies in the past 2 years. It has creative ideas (see the fight scene under water!), a great couple of heroes (beautiful So-yi Yoon from "Arahan" and Seo-jin Lee), and its simple principle "keep them on the run" avoids tedious moments. The movie takes us into 10th century Korea. After all possible heirs to the throne have been murdered, the warrioress Soha (So-yi Yoon) must bring the last surviving prince Jeong-hyeon (Seo-jin Lee) to the throne. He'd prefer an anonymous life under cover, though. But since enemies are already knocking at the door, he has no choice but trust the girl, follow her and run for his life...

Action packed, maybe not quite as stylish as "Hero" but still good looking, and occasionally with good dialog (for example when the prince wonders if he'd make a good king, he never had to think about that before), "Shadowless Sword" is enjoyable throughout.

I'm not good with remembering words that describe a fight style, but I found the word I was looking for here on IMDb at another review "Wuxia"! This style involves people fighting with swords (hence the English or at least a better understanding of the movie title "Shadowless Sword"!

I liked this movie not only because of the fight scenes (that's never enough to give a movie a really high rating), but also because of the characters. Although I'm aware of the fact that this is not MUSA (which was genius in my eyes), this still holds up very good and is worth a watch, if you don't hate Wuxia movies at least! ;o) (after you watch the movie, you can read the review from a fellow here at IMDb "Yagyu_Tajima")

First thing first: "Shadowless Sword" doesn't have much of a plot. Nothing much happens, which is pretty ridiculous considering it is a 2 hour movie. Basically, you could describe it as one long trek/chase sequence, periodically interrupted by the fight scenes, a la "Ice Age 2: The Meltdown" or the 2nd half of "The Island".

Having said that, the fight scenes are the main point of this movie, right? It is rare to see something new or original in martial arts movies, but here the filmmakers have a great eye for visually interesting fights. The backgrounds are gorgeous, and contribute a lot to the fights themselves. For instance, a lot of stuff breaks: pillars, tiles, and other objects all explode violently from destructive weapon swinging (think of the "Matrix" lobby scene but with swords instead of bullets). Roofs are there to enable aerial battle, and even being submersed underwater can't stop the sword fight from continuing!

This is a great little film, lots of action to keep you glued to your seat. I wasn't bored for a second. The beautiful So-yi Yoon is reason enough to watch this film as she acts as a very convincing bodyguard for the hapless prince. She is the best warrior of Balhae sent to bring him back to take up rulership after all the other Princes are killed. The female villain isn't half bad looking either. The villains are all very cartoon like but the fight scenes are really well done, so if you like this genre of film and if you enjoyed 'House of flying daggars' you will enjoy this film as long as you aren't expecting an in-depth storyline. The only downside of this film for me was the silly flying through the air scenes, I know they are part of this type of film but it spoils it for me. It is probably why I preferred 'House of flying daggars' to 'Crouching tiger, hidden dragon'. So I would certainly recommend this film and would definitely watch it again.