San shao ye de jian

Sword Master is a martial arts action movie directed by Derek Yee and stars Lin Gengxin, Peter Ho, Jiang Yiyan and Jiang Mengjie.

A skilled swordsman who is haunted by his past leaves his deadly skills and starts living simple life. The movie is a cocktail of emotions, romance, revenge and finally redemption.

To be honest I am little perplexed about this movie as the movie has elements to entertain but on the other side the uneven pace also deviates from it's path. The action of the movie is praiseworthy but too much use of CGI results in lack of originality.

Acting is decent and Peter Ho was the most impressive of them all in the role of Yen Shin-San, he is funny as well as brutal. Lin Gengxin is impressive but is almost similar throughout the movie apart from his very few romantic scenes, he also didn't looks impressive in action scenes, Jiang Yiyan is superb and Jiang Mengjie also looked good.

Screenplay as mentioned above is uneven it's is going very fast and all of sudden it's gets very slow. Action and stunts are great but too much use of CGI works as a spoiler. Climax of the movie is predictable but decent.

Overall this is a decent action movie and can be watched once, the lovers of Martial Arts action movie will enjoy this movie.

Sword Master is a typical example for the new wave of wu xia cinema. The costumes are colourful, the landscapes are breathtaking and the fight sequences are quite spectacular on the positive side. On the negative side, the special effects are exaggerated and overused, the story is developed in a confusing way with numerous flashbacks to hide the fact that the scenario is rather ordinary and the movie doesn't have the magic pioneer vibe of the original version called Death Duel in particular and the first wave of wu xia movies in general.

There are three elements that make Sword Master stand out and put it on a slightly above average level if compared to other contemporary wu xia flicks. The first twenty minutes of the movie are quite entertaining and feature interesting character developments, ferocious fights and stunning settings. The movie then quickly becomes exchangeable, predictable and shallow but its first impression is very positive. As a second element, the acting performances are rather positive even though they aren't outstanding or even moving. The different characters are credible and the actors and actresses rarely overact. Aside of one silly character who only has a minor role, the movie also avoids adding silly slapstick elements that wouldn't fit in. Finally, the movie has a great soundtrack that unites traditional folk instruments, classical music and a few modern sounds in a highly diversified and always appropriate way. The soundtrack manages to add more emotions to the different key scenes of this film.

Fans of traditional Chinese action cinema will surely be entertained by this movie even though it can't compete with the best genre flicks of the seventies and eighties. Those who aren't familiar with the wu xia genre should not start with this film though and discover the original films first. I was entertained very well and would watch this movie again in a few years.

My family enjoy these kind of movies , as for me not very much.

Rundong He's performance is surprisingly the best in this embarrassing movie. I am even shocked by the unreasonable and confusing character Yeqing Zhu who is asking "Do you love me?" all the time. The most confusing scene is that villagers blamed Yan Shisan for not teaching them Kungfu after he just saved all of them. What's even more unacceptable is that Shisan Yan forced into the town and killed all people near the bad boss and screaming "I will never be a selfish man!" Although many details in this movie cannot be explained ideally, the relationship between Shisan Yan and Xiaofeng Xie really moved me a lot. Two respectable swordsmen pitied each other's talent and spirit.

Bad cast, pretentious dialog, childish scenarios, one-way predictable boring storyline....only the village settings looked pretty good, so-so CGI special effect which sometimes looked quite unreal and fake. There's nothing more to comment. Just another deadbeat Chinese Hong Kong shallow production.