rob_paterson

A solidly good, but not especially great film. The brilliant (and unique) opening of the film does a great job of grabbing the audience, but then the film itself gets mired down into a tale of clan politics with healthy doses of action. The whole thing feels like it should have had another round of editing at the script stage, because there are story elements (like the seductress) that just walk on and off the stage for no particular reason. It's chock full of neat ideas, and there's a good twist at the end that makes it worth seeing, but overall it can't quite reach the heights it's aiming for.

The other reason it's notable is for its direction, the director really comes up with some brilliant shots that help to keep this film visually interesting even while the story is muddled down. I'd recommend it for students of cinematography as well as Shaw Brothers fans.

For purposes of marketing, this movie is called "Perils of the Sentimental Swordsman", but in Chinese it's called "Chu Liuxiang - Phantoms' Mountain Manor". Yes, it stars Ti Lung as a similar character to XiaoLi from the first two "Sentimental Swordsman" films, but he's playing a different character this time- Chu LiuXiang.

Chu LiuXiang is a wandering Robin Hood type figure- a highly skilled gentleman bandit who travels around and gets himself into all sorts of troubles. He hails from a series of novels written by Gu Long (or Ku Lung, as the Shaw Brothers movies credit him) who was one of the most prolific writers of WuXia (Kung Fu) novels of the 20th century. Which brings me to the other point- whenever you see Ku Lung's name in the credits of a film, you're watching an adaption of a long serial novel condensed into a short 90 minute film. Think about how successful American novel translations to film are, and you'll understand why films with a Ku Lung credit are often uneven but filled with cool scenes and ideas here and there.

That would also be a good summation of this movie, really- uneven, but lots of cool scenes and ideas!