Dung Fong Bat Bai: Fung wan joi hei

This is one of the most outrageous, totally hyper-kinetic stylish and bizarre (kung-fu fantasy) films I've ever seen. Brigitte Lin is stunning as Asia the Invincible. This is a really beautiful action film. It is unabashedly fantastical. If you haven't seen any modern kung-fu fantasy films from Hong Kong, this will leave your jaw scraping the floor. Super cool.

First disregard all negative comments, written by people who couldn't even follow the story.

This movie is perfect example of movies created during the golden age of Hong Kong. It's an amazing combination of romance, action, comedy and drama and it features beautiful women as deadly fighters. What more could you want? Koo - a Chinese officer risks his life to meet Asia the Invincible (a man turned woman, played by a woman - Brigitte Lin) the greatest fighter alive, who has retired from the world of martial arts. He wants her to stop other "Asia the Invincible" imposter's. She decides to help him at first, then to claim back her lost power. Now Koo has to stop her. But that's not all, there's also a love triangle involving Koo, Asia the Invincible and Snow (a woman pretending to be a man, played by a beautiful woman - Joey Wang).

The action is very over the top, it's unlike anything you've seen before, with people wielding cannons and throwing ships around, killing people with just their chi. There are lots of romantic, even erotic, moments, some of them involving two women, and the end is very dramatic.

Don't miss this great movie!

I wanna rate it 1. but I gave it 5 stars. Only because the soundtrack is great. actually one of the best that year. Sarah Chen sings a great song here (The Mundane World aka Xiao Hong Chen). She sang two theme songs for Hong Kong movies that year. actually both Hark Tsui's movies. this one and Green Snake (Dance of Sunlight aka Liu Guang Fei Wu). both songs are classics. you could still hear the music for these two movies featured in many TV serial nowadays. Brigitte Lin is OK in this movie, and has some memorable scenes. but Rongguang Yu is such a terrible actor, you just wanna hit him on his face~ and the script is really bad, no one could rescue it from that. of course, if you just wanna see some action, it's a OK movie for you. buy it on sale or just go buy the soundtrack.

I like everyone connected with this movie, cast and crew - but I don't like the movie.

It's not that I can't follow the plot. The problem is that the whole story is symbolic fantasy - or what they called in the Middle ages 'allegory' (i.e., an allegory for the loss of Chinese inner power with the arrival of foreign colonialists). They only recent film that comes close to this in structure is from Japan, Toyko: the Last Metropolis. The most recent western film to approach this kind of story is, possibly, Terry Gilliam's ill-conceived Baron Munchhausen movie. But I liked the characters in those two movies; I don't like any of the characters in this one. Which may be the point, but not any reason to watch the movie again.

I should remark that these three movies are all extremely well-made, and all dishwater dull.

I'm afraid film is not a medium conducive to allegory. Film seems to work best when the characters remind us of people we've met - or are likely to meet - even if we don't like them much. When actors stand in for metaphors, they can't stand in for people. In which case, why should we care?

This movie picks up where Swordsman II left off: the Magnificent Asia completes the transformation from a mortal man to a woman with incredible magic martial arts powers and continues her ruthless quest for power, revenge and love.

It's almost impossible to follow the plot, but the whole movie is so packed with supernatural action, intrigue, ambition, revenge, and amazing costumes and scenery it doesn't matter. Add English subtitles that are inadvertently hysterically funny and you have a truly bizarre and entertaining movie. Some people will find it boring, and martial arts buffs might be disappointed, but I thought it was a scream.