Now available from Eureka Classics
A legendary swordsman who has what he believes is a cursed sword decides to go into hiding. This doesn’t deter a young warrior from looking for him.
Written by Clifford Choi (screenplay), Shing-Hon Lau (screenplay), Tianci Liu, Zigiang Liu, Patrick Tam, and Ying Wong, and directed by Tam (for whom this was a first feature film as a director), The Sword is part of the return to wuxia that happened in the early 1980s and one of the earlier titles of that resurgence, taking from the subgenre and turning it into a classic story of good versus evil, or new versus old, of tradition versus new school. The work here is solid with Tam showing what we now know to be great talent and a knack for storytelling. His work here, along with the writing team, shows promise and a grasp of what makes a film entertaining. This may be a slower moving wuxia film; it is still a solid entry in the subgenre.
The cast here is led by Chi Chi Chen as the legendary swordsman and Adam Cheng as the young warrior Li Mak-jan, both of whom give great performances here, grabbing the viewer’s attention and never letting it go as long as they both or either are on the screen. They give performances that work well together and within the world the film builds, carrying the story and the action, making the most of their scenes. Joining them are Eddie Ko, Jade Hsu, Feng Tien, and Norman Chu, all giving good performances for the film and their characters. This is one of those ensemble cast type of films and the cast makes the most of it, turning in good performances and showing up for the story, the director, and each other.
The cinematography by Bill Wong and the editing by Peter Cheung team up well here and give the cast room to evolve and grow their characters as well as the space and time to perform the fight sequences and other action sequences to their best possible entertainment value, giving the viewer something to look at that they can see clearly. A signature of 1980s (and before and since) Asian action cinema and martial arts films to show the fights and get the exact right people to choreograph them, play them, and film them. The film here looks good and makes the most of its wide angles. This is a lovely while violent film that is almost mellow in its approach to sword and revenge. The way things are films here add to this feeling greatly.
The Sword is well-shot, entertaining, almost mellow, lovely, violent, with even a touch of gore when a man gets split in half lengthwise preceding the recent cases of this in horror films. This new release looks great on Blu-ray and sounds rather good in both Cantonese and English within its limitations. The new 2k restoration presented in 1080s is lovely here, giving the colors of the film life and allowing the fight sequences to shine. The extras on here are excellent with 2 new audio commentaries worth listening to, a new interview with Wayne Wong (expert in martial arts cinema), a new booklet with an archival interview with director Patrick Tam, and a bunch more. There is a lot here and for fans of the wuxia resurgence of the 1980s, it’s a good pick up.