Siu ngo gong woo

This movie has all the ingredients needed for a great martial arts movie: The base for this movie is that a powerful martial arts scroll has gone missing and everyone and their eunuch is out to find it.

Throw in several clans, each with their own unique martial arts style.

Stir in a shifty official with an even shiftier underling.

Add several dashes of mistaken identity.

Several betrayals and double crosses add a touch of spice to the film.

Quickly add an old martial arts master, snake throwing poisoners, and a mysterious birthmark.

To top off add a song bellowed by two old men that will never leave your head, and you have the best movie in all the Five Ranges!

If none of these things made sense, then watch the movie as soon as you can, it will all be very clear.

a lot of reviewers are saying that this one is almost as good as the second installment which had jet Li as the lead. what crack are they smoking? do they even know what a good movie is. if jet Li were to star in the first one there never would have been a second one because he didn't have the acting chops to make the first one a success. yes, the swordsman actually had good acting by SAM Hui who was the lead. Cecilia yip was so much better in the first one then Michelle reis was in the second. Sharla cheung was better then Rosamund kwan and King Hu is a better director then tsui hark.

a mystical scroll that gives supreme power to the owner is stolen from one of the chambers in the imperial palace and the hunt is on for it. everybody wants it except for SAM Hui and his band of brothers who are all about justice and morals. there's eunuchs, kung fu clans and outlawed kung fu clans, there's double and triple crosses, there is the fight between good and evil and not everything is what it seems.

the action choreography was done by Ching siu tung who is the best at wire kung fu and it shows. the movie was probably made on a shoestring budget but looked like a million dollars. the score was awesome and the theme song to the movie is unforgettable. try to get the translation for the song it really has deep meaning...generally about life itself and how fickle life is. we had my favorite singer Jacky cheung in one of his first award winning roles and the unforgettable fang yuen who played blue phoenix, a boy crazy snake charmer.

this movie was a passing of the guard from the old wuxia to the new wuxia movies of today, so it is important based on that alone. it was done very well considering it was only 2 hours long and the book had volumes as i recall.

they don't make movies like this enough, with a good storyline, likable actors, good fight scenes...i mean everything was good about this movie and the second one was good but this one is great!

I bought this for 2 bux at a video store cause i thought it seemed good and it had jet Li in it. but i didn't really think it was a very good film. the story is good and some of the action scenes are pretty cool but some of them are at night and are hard to see. some of them also seem sort of stupid looking when they jump around because it looks unrealistic. it is a good film don't get me wrong but they should've filmed it better. i was a bit bored by it but i didn't really mind it. it's not the best kung fu film i have seen but it's better than some i've seen. you should check it out if you don't mind bad lighting and some bad camera angles (not many though)

Swordsman was so popular in Hong Kong that it sprang two other sequels, which starred Jet Li. I consider this film to be a classic which started the whole "flying people martial art" movement in the 90's.

The movie is about a sacred scroll stolen from the vault of the emperor's palace. Different groups of people wanted to get their hands on the scroll, from the master of the Wan San school, to the Eunuches. Along the way, there are a lot of fighting, a lot of singing, comic relief, even an irony of how the most powerful martial art is no match against modern weapons (In Swordsman III - the east is red, this would have reversed, culminating in the quote "You have science, I have mysterious kung fu, your science is s**t")

The movie does not take itself too seriously. One of the best kung-fu/comedy/flying sword fights combination.

The above title will make no sense to you until you see this wildly entertaining movie. There's no point in summarizing the plot, since it's so convoluted that it's futile to try to follow it. The film takes place in the past, and involves a scroll which describes how to obtain secret powers. Not surprisingly, various martial arts clans vie for its ownership. This sets up various great martial arts sequences, cheesy jokes, and the codesong (as opposed to codeword) which will get stuck in your head no matter how much you try to fight it.

Besides the fact that it's just plain fun, I appreciated the fact that the film includes several strong female characters. It would be great if Hollywood could learn from this and other martial arts films that women who can kick serious butt can still be feminine and smart.

If you enjoy this film, check out its sequel (Swordsman II), and also check out "The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk," with Jet Li. You'll enjoy them as well.