Duo qing jian ke wu qing jian

Another great film by Shaw brothers, I would have actually given this movie 10 stars, but, some of the translations into English were off, and detracted from the story.

Chin Huan (Ti Lung) returns home to his brother after 10 years to defend his family against the mysterious Plum Blossom bandit whose identity is unknown. On his way, he becomes a friend of Ah Fei (Derek Yee); they both have a strong sense of honor and mutual respect for each other. When the local people suspect that Chin Huan himself could be the Plum Blossom bandit, because he is such a skilled fighter, Ah Fei defends him. Together they try to find the actual bandit.

This is a colorful and entertaining movie, well directed, and - quite rare - staged in a snowy landscape. Even the smaller characters, for example the drunken doctor, the Shaolin abbot and the master of poisons, are always interesting. Also the story has the unusual twist that the hero is fought most of the time by the good guys, as they mistake him for the villain, so instead of killing everyone, he often tries to avoid fights. Recommended!

during shaw brothers in hong kong dominated the Chinese wuxia (martial arts/swordsmanship) genre, most of the films were shot inside of its gigantic studio with all the phony or fake props and scenes. it did not like what the Japanese samurai films that mainly used open-air natural surroundings to make their films more realistic, the studio arrangements were just when they were necessary. shaw brothers' studio just rigidly used the studio to shoot almost all of their films in this genre with fake silk flowers, dead trees, fake houses facades and etc. to do the shooting in order to avoid any unpredictable weather conditions in the south east asia. but this never changed shooting format also inevitably reduced those films' value so low that most of such films simply looked so unreal and so pretentious. during that era, most of the screenplays were adapted from the popular Chinese wuxia (martial arts) novels written by some of the popular writers from taiwan while china at that time was in the turmoil cultural revolution. but the adapted scripts were just way too pretentious with stupid dialog that never felt natural but strongly staged like Shakespearean dramas. one the famous directors in this genre was chu yuen, who used most of the novels written by gu long, a wuxia writer who was so famous in writing the most pretentious dialog and scenarios just like the staged plays. chu shot all such films in the studio with artificial lighting and fake props. all the fighting scenes either with fists or swords or any kind of weapons were heavily rehearsed and synchronized with man made sound effects. since they were shot in the studio, the lighting arranged from different angles also inevitably cast lot of different shadows on the fake ground or floors, actors usually would have so many shadows in different shades following them around. the synchronized fighting scenes with awkward sound effects, including the moronic ho hung from the never perfected dubbed voice-over to match their fake fightings simply further reduced their real values in movie making.

you have to watch the Japanese samurai movies to compare with the Chinese wuxia movies to know what were not correctly done by shaw brothers and their directors. because every scene, every spoken word of the dialog, even the moon in the night sky, just looked so fake. you have to force yourself to watch these movies as watching plays performed on the stage just like watch Chinese bejing operas.

this film was a horrible viewing experience, so pretentious and so fake in every way you could imagine.

I appreciate the effort to include a complex story along with great Martial Arts, so the genre doesn't appear as meat-headed as many other films make it seem, but it truly fails to deliver here.

"Sentimental Swordsman" is another Gu Long novel-to-film adaptation, with Ti Lung playing Li Chin-Huan, a very solemn character with interesting skills and weapon choice. An added appeal to this film is that it weaves in some other characters that appear in related films, specifically Ai Fei, played by Derek Yee, who's older self appears in "Pursuit of Vengeance", referencing Li Chin-Huan as he meets one of his future students. Ti Lung also stars in that film, but obviously as another character.

The film's story is supposed to spell out one of distress for our hero Li Chin-Huan, as he is framed as the very person he intends to kill, the Plum Blossom Bandit. But following this story's logic through all the twists and turns will not lead you to a satisfying end. In return, my favorite fighting moments were definitely the ones where

1) the real Plum Blossom Bandit meets Ai Fei 2) Ai Fei vs. Mr. Iron Pipe 3) The Final Duel, where I was very impressed with Ti Lung's stunt performance, and the overall swordsmanship and intelligence from the choreographers.

If you don't mind skipping ahead if you get bored, you may be able to salvage something from this film. I also hear the sequel is far better.

If The Shaw Brothers were known for only one thing, it was for their martial arts flicks. The genre wasn't their sole strength, and other studios could claim excellence of their own, but there's a reason they were the go-to name in Hong Kong cinema. Exquisite choreography weaves together a diverse range of styles, and excellent stunts, with smart cinematography and editing that never shortchanges the blows and impact as is all too commonly true of modern action flicks. To this add reliably gorgeous, heavily detailed sets and costume design that effectively rival the kung fu - and in some cases, like here, an abundance of beautiful filming locations that are very easy on the eyes. The Shaw Brothers put the "art" in "martial arts," and 'The sentimental swordsman' is no exception.

Not all is well, however. To be frank, the storytelling is astonishingly forthright, blunt, and downright tactless, to the point of being painfully gawky. The first twenty minutes or so, in particular, are so rough that I almost reconsidered watching; while the writing does improve in some measure as the length draws on, the suspension of disbelief that the plot requires far exceeds most any other picture I've ever seen. Yes, in many cases the tale on hand is only a vehicle for the martial arts action in the first place, but whether one wishes to ascribe the difficulties to the root story or to the screenplay, the writing here comes across to me as sloppy and ill-considered. There are plenty of great ideas here, certainly, yet from one moment to the next a preponderance of the dialogue, scene writing, and each narrative beat in turn are penned with a Just So sensibility that pointedly strips away every last vestige of nuance. In exact inverse proportion to how magnificent and finessed the visuals are, the storytelling is dubious and clunky.

I still think 'The sentimental swordsman' is enjoyable, for the action alone is outstanding, and even at its most tawdrily club-footed there remains just enough strength in the saga to keep it interesting. Even through to the very end, however, when we learn who the Plum Blossom Bandit is and their motivations, one can only respond to the tale with a confounded "what?" What it comes down to is that if you want marvelously, spellbinding, meticulous stunts and fight choreography, and supreme martial arts action, then you've come to the right place. If you want a feast for the eyes, generally, then you've come to the right place. If you want a good narrative to accompany that splendor, you emphatically need to look elsewhere. And for the fact that we get everything we could possibly want out of other Shaw Brothers flicks, including those qualities that this lacks, the question unfortunately becomes why we would spend time here in the first place.

It's worth checking out if you come across it, but definitely don't go out of your way for it. 'The sentimental swordsman' is good, but distinctly flawed in important ways, and it's not nearly as much fun as it could have been if as much care were taken in the writing as had been applied to the action sequences and the sets. Oh well.