O Espadachim Sentimental

Another great film by Shaw brothers, I would have actually given this movie 10 stars, but, some of the translations into English were off, and detracted from the story.

Yuen Chor is one of the lesser known Shaw kung fu directors, he also is one of the more prolific directors with over 120 films in a 36 year career. With the re-release of the Shaw library on DVD several reasons for his obscurity become clear. One, his films have some of the best art direction you can find in the kung-fu films of this era. Two, the films are always framed for full Shaw Scope wide screen. Three, he fills his films with lots of colorful characters. When these films were put on TV, most of the visuals were ruined and it's really hard for a non-Chinese audience to keep up with the parade of characters especially with bad dubbing.

This film contains a large number of main characters, about a dozen, although most of the film revolves around the hero played by Ti Lung. These characters keep returning to say something or advance the plot. That alone makes the film hard to watch. A Yuen Chor film where this isn't problem is the Magic Blade which has a similar number of characters but most show up for a scene and leave. The twists and turns of the plot just add to the mental exhaustion if you are not ready for it.

The pace of the film is good with a number of well choreographed fight scenes. There are some crazy super-human kung fu stunts. The film looks great and the actors all do their good usual work.

"Sentimental Swordsman" epitomizes the film era of Later Old School, which were martial arts films that came out later 70s and early 80s. They bridge the gap between the early 70s chop socky fests and the New Wave wire-flyers of Tsui Hark, et al. LOS works tended to have more lavish budgets than Early Old School, firmly established stars and directors entering their prime, and much more complex plots.

The story begins with a nobleman in exile, with his trusty sidekick in tow, walking through a melancholy snowy landscape. He is returning home to protect a woman he reluctantly left to protect her from the elusive Plum Blossom Bandit. Through a series of betrayals, he is accused of being the villain in question. He spends a good deal of the film protesting his innocence, with words and fists. It was a fantastic performance by Shaw Brothers legend Ti Lung. Another standout performance is Derek Yee (Er Tung-sheng), who plays Ti Lung's comrade-in-arms. He's another wandering sword-for-hire who doesn't suffer fools gladly, but repays respect with loyalty. The film features beautiful cinematography, including one lovingly shot scene of a fight in a plum blossom garden. Sentimental Swordsman is a solid sword flick, and one of director Chu Yuan's better efforts.

There are the inevitable cheeseball elements, such as the Plum Blossom Bandit's pink ninja outfit and the rather dubious martial art of snake hurling, but hey, this is Shaw Brothers. Fans of the genre will find it only adds to its appeal.

A worthy addition to your Kung Fu library.

I appreciate the effort to include a complex story along with great Martial Arts, so the genre doesn't appear as meat-headed as many other films make it seem, but it truly fails to deliver here.

"Sentimental Swordsman" is another Gu Long novel-to-film adaptation, with Ti Lung playing Li Chin-Huan, a very solemn character with interesting skills and weapon choice. An added appeal to this film is that it weaves in some other characters that appear in related films, specifically Ai Fei, played by Derek Yee, who's older self appears in "Pursuit of Vengeance", referencing Li Chin-Huan as he meets one of his future students. Ti Lung also stars in that film, but obviously as another character.

The film's story is supposed to spell out one of distress for our hero Li Chin-Huan, as he is framed as the very person he intends to kill, the Plum Blossom Bandit. But following this story's logic through all the twists and turns will not lead you to a satisfying end. In return, my favorite fighting moments were definitely the ones where

1) the real Plum Blossom Bandit meets Ai Fei 2) Ai Fei vs. Mr. Iron Pipe 3) The Final Duel, where I was very impressed with Ti Lung's stunt performance, and the overall swordsmanship and intelligence from the choreographers.

If you don't mind skipping ahead if you get bored, you may be able to salvage something from this film. I also hear the sequel is far better.

If The Shaw Brothers were known for only one thing, it was for their martial arts flicks. The genre wasn't their sole strength, and other studios could claim excellence of their own, but there's a reason they were the go-to name in Hong Kong cinema. Exquisite choreography weaves together a diverse range of styles, and excellent stunts, with smart cinematography and editing that never shortchanges the blows and impact as is all too commonly true of modern action flicks. To this add reliably gorgeous, heavily detailed sets and costume design that effectively rival the kung fu - and in some cases, like here, an abundance of beautiful filming locations that are very easy on the eyes. The Shaw Brothers put the "art" in "martial arts," and 'The sentimental swordsman' is no exception.

Not all is well, however. To be frank, the storytelling is astonishingly forthright, blunt, and downright tactless, to the point of being painfully gawky. The first twenty minutes or so, in particular, are so rough that I almost reconsidered watching; while the writing does improve in some measure as the length draws on, the suspension of disbelief that the plot requires far exceeds most any other picture I've ever seen. Yes, in many cases the tale on hand is only a vehicle for the martial arts action in the first place, but whether one wishes to ascribe the difficulties to the root story or to the screenplay, the writing here comes across to me as sloppy and ill-considered. There are plenty of great ideas here, certainly, yet from one moment to the next a preponderance of the dialogue, scene writing, and each narrative beat in turn are penned with a Just So sensibility that pointedly strips away every last vestige of nuance. In exact inverse proportion to how magnificent and finessed the visuals are, the storytelling is dubious and clunky.

I still think 'The sentimental swordsman' is enjoyable, for the action alone is outstanding, and even at its most tawdrily club-footed there remains just enough strength in the saga to keep it interesting. Even through to the very end, however, when we learn who the Plum Blossom Bandit is and their motivations, one can only respond to the tale with a confounded "what?" What it comes down to is that if you want marvelously, spellbinding, meticulous stunts and fight choreography, and supreme martial arts action, then you've come to the right place. If you want a feast for the eyes, generally, then you've come to the right place. If you want a good narrative to accompany that splendor, you emphatically need to look elsewhere. And for the fact that we get everything we could possibly want out of other Shaw Brothers flicks, including those qualities that this lacks, the question unfortunately becomes why we would spend time here in the first place.

It's worth checking out if you come across it, but definitely don't go out of your way for it. 'The sentimental swordsman' is good, but distinctly flawed in important ways, and it's not nearly as much fun as it could have been if as much care were taken in the writing as had been applied to the action sequences and the sets. Oh well.