Book of Swords

Managed to sneak my way into a viewing. Good story..great conflicts. Main character Ho Sun Pak, playing a cop "OFFICER LAING" was amazing in martial arts and toned down his acting performance at the right times to be bullied by 3 wild characters on a mission to destroy him.

I was scared off my pants by the character of "X-MAN"..I think played by a British actor with a deep menacing look..Kevin Ula Christie. I hope I never run into him, even though at times he was quite comedic and almost dishy.

This movie has the right blend of deep dialogue and action, and is very different to the run of the mill martial arts. This has story, strong acting, great fight scenes, warm crisp cinematography, and the dialogue was thought provoking.

Good job whoever you guys are!

To make it short and quick: The movie boring, the fighting is merely more about screaming like Bruce lee than real fighting action. The actors do have a lots of good moves, but the choreography is just bad. There is a fight scene in which a oil lantern is in front of the action and you cannot see the whole fight scene, because it covers like 1 /3 of the picture.

I don't know why this is called a fantasy movie, its more like a ninja movie with some bad special effects. It could also be some gangster action movie with some ninjas. Don't pay for this movie, you'll regret it.

I saw a screener copy of the movie and I must say that the martial arts in the movie is just out of this world. Don't get me wrong it is not like we haven't seen this stuff before, it is just that this time there is no wires used. I am not sure if I believe that but if anyone knows for sure please write in. I tried to look for wires but did not find any. Also can anyone let me know how to get a hold of the actual film. One last thing, this guy, Ho-sung has mad, mad skills. You could actually see the fight scenes, not like most movies where the camera is all over the place. Next best thing to Bruce Lee.

Well, in response to the previous comment, I am a martial arts fan and I did not like this movie. The main reason is stated in my one-line summary: when the hero slaughters anonymous opponents by the dozen, as he often does here, it's not exciting - it's boring. There are only two good fight scenes in this movie: the one with the bald guy and the last one. These are the only ones where the villains put up much of a fight. As for the "no wires or special effects were used in the fight scenes" disclaimer, well, they used a lot of camera effects which in martial arts films is almost the same thing as special effects, as for the "no wires" part, it would be a lot more impressive if the lead (or anyone else) actually did anything that REQUIRES wires in the first place. Don't get me wrong, he obviously has the moves, but he doesn't do anything that I haven't seen before from guys like, say, Keith Cooke. The script is ambitious but ultimately silly, and the direction is often clueless as to how to shoot a fight scene. The actress who plays the hero's love interest packs a mean right punch - I'd like to see her again. (*1/2)

I watched it in 2018 and this 1996 movie is poorly directed and poorly edited but is great to watch for those who has mortal kombat nostalgia, because of the actors/actresses who were playing the roles the MK games are all portraying same characters in this movie but with different names. Usually we say so bad it's good, but here we say it's so bad that it's epic great.

The story is about detective Lang (Ho Sung Pak) who is chasing a gangster Taz (Richard Divizio) who is searching for the book of swords that can give him magical power. What they both don't know is the book can also release a soul of an evil warlord and whoevers body he takes over will have unlimited powers and only the Warrior who is born in the year of the dragon can stop him.

I love this movie because of the nostalgia of 1996 and most of all the feeling of finally a real Mortal Kombat movie, specially the disco fight scene with Ho Sung Pak and Daniel Pesina , those two actors played Liu Iang and Johnny Cage in the game and when they had their epic battle in the disco in this movie I couldn't help screaming oh my god a MK movie coming to life.

I recommend it to all mortal kombat fans, and it's my favorite I've watched in 2018.