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MUYEONG GEOM
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“The Legend of the Shadowless Sword” takes a unique approach to the sword play with one on one combat that look like acrobatic performances while Kim reaches for pure emotion with every clashing of the blade on screen. While it’s definitely not a film of substance, it definitely keeps up its end of pure dynamic special effects and strong respective performances. As for the DVD, we’re given a good amount of extras to chew on. There’s the seventeen minute “Character Introductions” where we can be accustomed to the heroes and the villains. There’s also a six minute “Behind the Scenes” featurette that works well in spite of its short run time with on set footage, candid looks at the cast goofing around, and different takes during filming. There’s also a beautiful minute and a half Photo Gallery, as well as a music video, and the International Trailer under the New Line Cinema banner.
There’s also the high wire work that’s dazzling but adds almost nothing to what we see on screen. Not to mention, most of the story is basically just a variation of “Lone Wolf and Cub” with our heroine Yeon So-Ha leading our young prince to his kingdom battling assassins and criminals along the way. I also never understood why most of the blood shed is minimal and yet the film is given a hard R. Most of the time whenever a character is slashed repeatedly, they just burst in to a hail of smoke and symbolic red fog that left me scratching my head and wondering when this story would actually gain momentum and break out in to its own reins. “The Legend of the Shadowless Sword” has sheer potential to bring about an epic tale of an exiled young man reclaiming his throne, and instead we’re just given a pastiche of stories and devices we’ve seen done a million times over and with a better result.
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In the way of eye candy, director Young-jun Kim’s martial arts fantasy
is quite the doozey since he demonstrates a keen visual tact that kept
me watching with attention undiverted for a great portion of his epic;
one scene in particular involves our two protagonists battling the Blade
gang under water where they discover a fondness for one another as
blades whiz by their heads. “The Legend of the Shadowless Sword” is an
entertaining action fantasy about a young prince called to take the
throne after the kingdom’s only surviving royalty are systematically
assassinated by traitors among the ranks. So-Yi Yoon is bewitching as
the aged warrior Soha who is sent to retrieve the exiled prince and must
protect him from an onslaught of assassins along the countryside. Her
charismatic rage mixed with her occasional vulnerability faced with old
allies from the past and recollections of violence during war keeps her
a constant stand out among the cast of veterans and she’s absolutely
breathtaking. Ki-yong Lee is absolutely gorgeous as the rival to Soha
who has an axe to grind as she struggles to keep her allegiances to her
master in tact.
I sadly never cared for any of these characters. In spite of
director Young-jun Kim’s attempts to grab a sense of urgency and
sympathy for them, I could never really muster up too much emotion
for any of the villains or heroes here mainly because “The Legend of
the Shadowless Sword” seems to touch on concepts that feel derived
from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” I couldn’t help but compare
it to Lee’s fantasy epic mainly because this felt like a clear
imitation of the aforementioned while never quite capturing the rich
storylines and character development. The action here is frenetic
and hard to keep up with as opposed to Lee’s film. There’s also the
storyline: the secret heir to the throne, the heir’s life of crime
they prefer to royal life, the tired warrior looking for peace, and
their rare sword that brings with it blood and violence wherever it
travels.
