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ONCE
UPON A TIME IN HONG KONG: A TSUI HARK RETROSPECTIVE May 25-28, 2001 at the Anthology Film Archives |
SWORDSMAN
(1990) 
Directed by: Tsui Hark, King Hu, Ann Hui, Ching Siu-tung, Andrew Kam, Raymond Lee Written by: Kwan Man-leung, Wong Ying, Lam Kei-to, Lau tai-muk, Edward Leung, Tai Fu-ho Action choreography by: Ching Siu-tung Starring: Sam Hui, Cecilia Yip, Cheung Man, Jacky Cheung, Lau Shun, Yuen Wah, Fennie Yuen, Lam Ching-ying, Wu Ma 117 minutes, 35mm in Cantonese with English subtitles "The film that re-launched the period action movie and still one of the best of the genre." -Barbara Scharres, Director, Film Center of the Art Institute of Chicago "...full of intricate comic intrigues and stop-on-a-dime plot reversals..." -Chuck Stephens, Film Comment 
The most literal depiction of the Chinese pulps ever caught on film, the martial arts in SWORDSMAN are more like physics experiments than kung fu. Swordsmen bounce and fly like superballs, sword energy crackles out of blades and slices mountains in half, and bullets are ejected from wounds with skull-splitting force. Based on the popular wuxia (swordsman) novels of Jin Yong, originally serialized and published in newspapers for the sweaty-palmed commuter set, the flick soars on solid fuel boosters made of comic book pulp. Legendary director King Hu, who invented the modern swordsman movie (he won a Special Award at Cannes in 1969 for his masterpiece, A TOUCH OF ZEN) was originally directing the project for Film Workshop and he designed the characters and started filming. Tsui Hark quickly realized that the movie was a bust - King Hu wasn't in touch with the Film Workshop style. Other directors were brought in - Ann Hui, Ching Siu-tung, Tsui Hark, Raymond Lee - and six writers wore their pen fingers to a nub, the budget doubled, and King Hu (walked off? was fired? quit in disgust?) ended his involvement. The chaos was such that actor/pop star Jacky Cheung would win a Golden Horse Award for Best Newcomer in his role as Au Yeung, and two of the six directors had no idea he was even working on the picture. 
Everyone has a different story about what happened, but the costume designs, sets, and the character designs all remain King Hu's work, while the final product is unmistakably Tsui Hark. The flick is based on a novel by popular writer Jin Yong, who reinvented the sprawling, brawling martial arts novel between 1955 and 1972 (he's still alive, but stopped writing in '72 with around 40 novels to his name). Like Dickens, Jin Yong is the giant of modern Chinese literature and his novels were first published as newspaper serials and only later collected into book form. Scholars claim that he is the only Chinese author who matters, and hotels serve meals based on incidents in his stories (a Taiwanese hotel offers "Eagle Shooting Hero Feasts" featuring "In Whose Home Does the Jade Flute Sound Like Falling Plum Blossoms" beef strips). Jin Yong's tales of martial chivalry and flying swordsmen (and women) in turn inspired, and were inspired by, a cinema of swordplay, called wuxia pian, that lays claim to 800 films between 1949 and 1979. In the 1970's, the swordsman movie fell victim to the kung fu flick, which in turn was supplanted by the knockabout comedies of the early 80's, which were replaced in the public's favor by the heroic bloodshed movies started appearing in 1986. Tsui Hark's SWORDSMAN is the first of its kind in quite some time and it perfectly captures the epic sprawl of the novels on which it's based. 
Sam Hui, the man who invented Cantopop and an able actor in his own right, plays Ling from the Wah Mountain School. He and Kiddo (Cecilia Yip), his cross-dressing partner, are sent to aid one of their master's colleagues falsely accused of stealing the Sacred Scroll. Zhor (Jackie Chan's Opera school pal, Yuen Wah) is sent to track them down and they wind up allying with the Sun Moon Sect to defeat the skeletal, elderly Eunuch (Lau Shun) whose supernatural powers prove that senility is strength. Poisoned needles fly, plots twist, and paranoia blooms as martial masters tear up the scenery, and each other, in their bloody quest for the magic scroll. An original installment in an imaginary genre, set in a world you've never seen before, SWORDSMAN manages to stretch credibility and be perfectly logical at the same time. Watching it is like coming in on the middle of a frantic, furious story that started hundreds of years before you sat down, and that will continue long after you've left. |
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2001 Subway Cinema, LLC. All Rights Reserved.