Seven Swords (2005)

An Ambitious Story. Maybe Too Ambitious.

This was a movie I wanted to like more than I actually did. The production quality, and the cinematography grabs the hand of this movie and leads it down the road of masterpiece. But it's either the story or the editing that walks with the two left feet along the way. This movie probably needed another hour in order to pull off what it wanted to accomplish -- which is be an Action Story, and not just an Action Movie. The Director had the admirable goal of making us an emotional spectator, but because he's burdened with placing Seven Protagonists behind the Seven Swords, he has only a handful of minutues to offer any kind of substantial backstory to each character. There were times when the subtext of some character seemed to have just emerged out of nowhere. I'd give examples, but to be honest, I can't identify any of the multi-characters by name. so I'll just say, as an example, that "some guy" whose backstory was that of a farmer (I think) seemed to be pretty broken up when it was decided that he had to set his horses free. Especially, the Horse JoyLuck, whose name I can remember. By the way, I'm *not* being sarcastic here. That was really how I approached that scene, since prior to it, I can't recall any build up. Maybe I missed it.

Amazingly, despite the cloudiness of the JoyLuck scene, I was still somewhat moved by it, a sure credit to the cinematography and the heart breaking score by Kenji Kawai. Both do an amazing job of compensating for what I just couldn't gather from the story. I have to believe that juggling seven characters in the writers/directors world is as dangerous as juggling seven swords. And despite my clueless detachment from the motivation of the characters, I enjoyed watching them when they went into battle. My conclusion is that the Writers (Three of them) and the Director knew what they were doing, they just didn't have enough screen-time to pull it off. May 30, 2008

Pleasant

it's not exactly great, it definatly didn't look too fake as, crouching tiger hidden dragon. i first watched this movie while i was in afghanistan, so i recommended it to my cousin. we now both enjoy this movie, because of the fact that they tried to keep away from making people fly. May 18, 2008

Not impressed

"Seven Swords" is a bit bland, to be honest. Great director, nice sound and look, Donnie Yen, the magnificent Lau Kar Leung. It has the right ingredients, but simply fails to make an impression. Not enough character development, silly fighting and less than amazing dialogue. There is perhaps too much fiddling around with the look of the 'baddies', who look sort of ridiculous.

I wouldn't see it again and wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is not absolute genre- or Yen-fans. 2,5 stars.
April 11, 2008

Not what you expect from Donnie Yen

I heard so many good things about this movie. I was disapointed. If your looking for good Kung Fu action from Donnie Yen you might want to check out Kung Fu Master, & Return of Kung Fu Master. circleoflifekungfu.com March 29, 2008

Action but....

A bit disjointed and definately not Tsui Hark's best but still entertaining. Good Wu Xia but at some point the story drags a little yet the charactor's are pretty interesting. March 12, 2008

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