Le règne par le sabre

this is one of my new favorite movies...yes it may be odd for them to not show more significance of the sword...yet i think overall a great movie and not quite like hero or crouching tiger...so go get this awesome movie...and don't forget all movies not heard of with big release dates or announced as "THE SUMMERS BIGGEST BLOCKBUSTER" can be sick...just to mention though it has subtitles and if you haven't seen a movie with subtitles this could be your first...go to you closes movie retailer and pick this up...also those girls are a added bonus (guys you know what i mean ;) and now on to another movie and more reviews toodles...

"Shadowless Sword" was one of my favorite wuxia movies in the past 2 years. It has creative ideas (see the fight scene under water!), a great couple of heroes (beautiful So-yi Yoon from "Arahan" and Seo-jin Lee), and its simple principle "keep them on the run" avoids tedious moments. The movie takes us into 10th century Korea. After all possible heirs to the throne have been murdered, the warrioress Soha (So-yi Yoon) must bring the last surviving prince Jeong-hyeon (Seo-jin Lee) to the throne. He'd prefer an anonymous life under cover, though. But since enemies are already knocking at the door, he has no choice but trust the girl, follow her and run for his life...

Action packed, maybe not quite as stylish as "Hero" but still good looking, and occasionally with good dialog (for example when the prince wonders if he'd make a good king, he never had to think about that before), "Shadowless Sword" is enjoyable throughout.

I saw an extended version of 116 minutes (apparently there is a 104 minute version as well).

First off, the title makes you expect something else. I expected this "Shadowless Sword" to play some pivotal role, but no show. This film should better be named "Back to Balhae" or something, because that's what it's all about: a trek to Balhae. The storyline is pretty thin, but a martial arts movie with an original and strong story is a rare thing, so you shouldn't be too surprised about that.

Technically this movie is very beautifully shot, with excellent art direction and costumes. The stuff on screen really is exquisite and should satisfy costume-aficionados and the artists among us. The actors do a good job too, no overacting or amateurish stuff, but at times over-directed it seems. The two main actresses are very pretty, so very nice to look at. Clearly intended to attract the mainly male target-audience, I guess. No ugly women to be seen, not even with the extras. The fighting scenes are very enjoyable, but they miss the rawness and directness seen in HongKong martial arts movies. And unfortunately some stuff badly copied from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. And overall the pace of the movie was excruciatingly slow. I hope the director and editors will learn that even pretty shots shown too long do get boring.

So bottom line: Don't get me wrong, it IS a rather enjoyable movie, no question about that. But you'll forget in a week or two. Good shot by the Koreans at the Wuxia genre though. Keep 'em coming!

Now I'll start off by saying that there is no reason to compare this movie to the Asian blockbusters such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or Hero etc. It doesn't matter if you've seen them or not because I think this movie has it's own atmosphere and feel to it. I guess it's because this film is Korean. There is a distinct difference between Korean and other Asian action movies. They have their own style of making these fantastic action/epic/drama movies. Another great Korean movie in the same veins is Musa The Warrior, so if you've seen it you have some idea what to expect. Some other comment stated that there are some weird comedic features in the fight scenes, but I wouldn't point that out in the review. It was only one short scene and that's all she wrote. On the contrary I found this movie to be quite serious in the whole. Though everyone would say there wasn't much of a plot I answer; There is an adequate plot to carry this movie without a problem, it is after all made for entertaining purposes, not for the Oscar nomination.

Now more about the movie. The fighting is mostly sword-fighting. There are a few more exotic arms with some of the fighters too like bows or poles. The fights were made watcher friendly in a way that you can actually see what is happening in the fights all the time. So it's not just a clinging sound and a million swordstrikes per second where you can't tell which sword belongs to who. So you can see every small detail in the fights which is in my opinion definitely a good thing. And yes, there is a lot of flying in the movie, but used much more tastefully than for example in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The fight choreography in general was amazing. Saw many moves that I hadn't seen before in similar films. The actors were good, especially the leading actress was very convincing. When I watched this film, I had been bored out of my mind all day and was about to fall to sleep. NOT after the movie started rolling. I was glued to my seat from start to end. Summary: Good action and choreography, good acting and very, very entertaining.

Well, what can I say -- great movie. The comparison to House of Flying Daggers of course is inevitable ;-) Shadowless Sword is more humorous (but not comedy-fun), there is a bit of adventure theme, the story is simpler (so there is less who-is-who guessing), and has two dazzling beautiful (!) women as leading characters. I almost would say I like Shadowless Sword more if only director didn't made special effects awkward.

Maybe it is just me, but I expect that after hitting objects can explode, but not after cutting. And here some objects fall apart (with great speed and energy) what looks amazing (with proper music) but some... explode, which is not funny, not spectacular, not magical, not mysterious -- it is simply bizarre. It is so out-of-place that it spoils every fight scene when director decided to put explosion after sword cut. Pity...