Le règne par le sabre

I saw this film had an average rating around 5 the other day, so I figured I'd chime in on it, because I think a 5 is a bit harsh. I enjoyed the film, it has some decent fight scenes, and the acting is fine imo. Yeah, it borrows a lot from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers, etc..., but I enjoyed the film regardless of that.

I really liked Ji-Woo Choi(who played Yeon Soha) in this film. She was great in the fight scenes and had a seriousness about her character that she portrayed very well. One thing I didn't like was some random oddness in the film. Could have been the script or it could have been the director, its hard to tell, but there were times where there seemed to be a comedy direction out of nowhere during some fight scenes and conversations and whatnot. I felt the film worked better as a serious drama, and the random comedic parts didn't fit in well imo. Also I felt the explosion kill move that is seen a few times throughout the film was a bit corny as well.

Anyhow, I think a rating of 5 is a bit harsh. House of Flying Daggers, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and Hero are three of my favorite films, and while this film is not in a class with those three, its worth watching if you enjoyed those three films. I think a 7.5 is a fair rating for this film, rounded down to a 7.

"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.

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.

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.

Well, what can I say -- great movie. The comparison to House of Flying Daggers of course is inevitable ;-) Shadowless Sword is more humorous (but not comedy-fun), there is a bit of adventure theme, the story is simpler (so there is less who-is-who guessing), and has two dazzling beautiful (!) women as leading characters. I almost would say I like Shadowless Sword more if only director didn't made special effects awkward.

Maybe it is just me, but I expect that after hitting objects can explode, but not after cutting. And here some objects fall apart (with great speed and energy) what looks amazing (with proper music) but some... explode, which is not funny, not spectacular, not magical, not mysterious -- it is simply bizarre. It is so out-of-place that it spoils every fight scene when director decided to put explosion after sword cut. Pity...