Qi jian

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.

Just finished watching Seven Swords. I have no idea why people are so against it. Sure, at 2 and a half hours length, it is still missing over an hour, but I had no trouble understanding the story, and to me the characters were pretty fleshed out. For some reason people are dead set against this film, and I wonder if it has to do with Crouching Tiger, Hero and Daggers?

Maybe these people haven't seen The Bride With White Hair, The Blade or films like that. I get the impression that many complaints are leveled by Hollywood trained fans who don't yet understand the context of this film. Whatever the case, this film deserves accolades for it's imagination and for hewing so close to sword fight movie tradition.

The action was fantastic and the fights were creative and very clever. Yes, they did it with wires. That's why we keep coming back. The swords themselves rules, and the cinematography had that Tsui Hark attention to detail. The middle of the film has mostly dramatic elements, building up to a huge finale. I never thought it dragged on, and I found myself rapt until the final credit rolled.

Seven Swords was beautifully shot, the characters embodied the fantasy perfectly and acting was full of heart. Get it.

I saw ZU:Warriors from the Magic Mountain and found that one incredibly too fast for both my eyes and my brain. Nevertheless, it was a great spectacle that left me shouting all the way from beginning to the end "WOW!!" Then I saw Legend of Zu, and I went "God I don't want to watch this.. pleaseee!" Then I rented 7-Swords and thought it would be something either in the first category (really fast editing, you don't know who's who, or who's fighting with who, etc) or in the second one (lots of special effects, bad music, no story - yes I'm talking abt the Legend of Zu) But, 7-swords exceeded my expectations! It give nice backgrounds to the characters and their motivation, the editing was a nice flow, at some points I even thought that the movie was going too slow, considering that it's Tsui Hark who made Zu, whenever he took time to develop stories between characters.

I talked to a friend and he said "It's not worth watching, just another commercial film". HELLO? From the very beginning, Tsui Hark had always made commercial films, what did you expect? Duh.. In terms of storytelling and kungfu fighting, i think 7-swords is much much better than Hero or House of Flying Daggers. I can't say if its better than Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon because I personally didn't find that movie special enough.. but it won an Oscar anyway, so...

7-Swords reminds me of the golden times when kungfu flicks are based on good choreography and not just colorful costumes and international stars. I was very disappointed with Legend of Zu because it's filled with bad can music and cg-animation. But 7-swords.. waow.. it's back to the original Tsui Hark.

Overall, its a nice comeback, good to see some real Chinese kungfu films again :)

The movie started out strong although it was far from "The Seven Samurai", which I believe it intends to emulate. In the first half, I found myself caring about the characters and the non-stop action was exciting. Nevertheless, in the second half, the script started meandering in a number of nonsensical directions and the ending was somewhat ridiculous. Nonsensical is a relative term given that the film was fable like and thus once it stopped making sense it really stopped making sense.

Overall, I recommend the movie since it exceeded my expectations. It's popcorn with good character development tacked on at the beginning and So-yeon Kim is eye candy throughout the film. However, anticipate to find yourself somewhat disappointed towards the end.