Seven Swords – Chat Gim (2005)

Directed by: Tsui Hark | 153 minutes | action, drama, war, romance, adventure | Actors: Leon Lai, Charlie Yeung, Donnie Yen, Chia-Liang Liu, Liwu Dai, Sun Honglei, So-yeon Kim, Duncan Lai, Yi Lu, Jingwu Ma, Jason Pai Piao, Honglei Sun, Michael Wong, Jingchu Zhang, Lau Kar Leung

If Tsui Hark, as a producer or director, devotes himself to an action film, you are almost assured of impressive martial arts scenes. His breakthrough came with ‘Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain’ (1983), caused a furore with ‘The Blade’ (1995), and was responsible for the film series ‘A Chinese Ghost Story’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in China’. And now there’s the epic ‘Seven Swords’, which carries associations of cinematic greatness through its resemblance to Kurosawa’s ‘Seven Samurai’. Both the title and the plot of ‘Seven Swords’ are very similar to this Japanese classic, which would later receive a successful American Western adaptation with ‘The Magnificent Seven’.

Yet the film has its own source, namely the popular “wuxia” novel “Seven Swordsmen from Mount Tian’, by Liang Liu Sheng. In other words: the seven swordsmen of the mountain of heaven. Some villagers from “Martial Village” seek out this mountain for help. They are in fact threatened by bounty hunters who take advantage of the price on their heads because of the law against martial arts practice. The villagers return with seven mythical swords and four fighters who can wield these swords. The rest of the swords must find new owners. The weapons have beautiful, auspicious names like star fighter, deity, celestial rays, but their mysticism and unique powers are disappointingly crafted. These swords beg for a grand introduction and display of their capabilities, but we must do without such treatment. The swords are picked up, the fighters added to the already “familiar” characters and the group is formed.

These are the legendary Seven Swords designed to instill fear in their opponents and excitement and anticipation in the hearts of the beholder. But alas, the movie’s trailer seems to be doing this better than the movie itself. We do see the swords, in varying degrees, in action later in the film, but more training cuts and explanations of accompanying philosophies would have been more than welcome. Now we only see Charlie Yeung, the only female warrior among our heroes, being briefly instructed with her sword, which slides through the handle and can be used on both sides. She learns to hold it as if she were playing her flute.

The biggest problem is probably the many uninteresting (melodramatic) sidetracks in the film. Superficial characters fall in love overnight, or suddenly choose another, and about five minutes are even spent saying goodbye to a galloping horse whose owner sits on a mountain with tears in his eyes. stands and calls out his name. Perhaps this could have been emotional if we had invested something in this story, but now it’s mostly laughable. The love story between a Korean slave girl, called Groene Pearl, of villain Fire-Wind and the also Korean hero Chu (Donnie Yen), is interesting because of the political tensions and her position as an outsider, but this story is also briefly elaborated and shows too little chemistry or loving devotion between the two lovers. The introduction of Groene Parel is particularly catchy. As a prisoner, she is called to the bad guy, and crawls over to some food that is displayed in front of the seated warlord. He drops his sword, the bystanders catch their breath, but… luckily she’s still alive. A little later we see her starving to chew on a piece of chicken while Vuur-Wind does the same with her back (meat), by way of kinky sex. It doesn’t seem to bother her as long as she is fed. An interesting image.

Fire-Wind, by the way, is just a tame villain. For most of the film he sits comfortably in his castle or somewhere afterwards, while his subjects do the work. His sudden fits of laughter are pleasantly eccentric, but his right hand, a woman with a big lock over half her head and a face painted like a goth, instills much more fear in the viewer. Especially in the brutal opening scenes in which villagers are mercilessly slaughtered, beautifully designed in black and white with only the red tones in color (which emphasizes the blood), she is a terrifying executor. Too bad she dies halfway through the movie. The battle scenes are worth watching, but are somewhat disappointing in view of the aforementioned expectations regarding the Seven Swords and Hark’s reputation. The rough combat style made Hark more exciting in ‘The Blade’ and for the more magical cable work, you better turn to movies like ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ and ‘Hero’. Many battles are still quite compelling and refreshingly “earthy”, but at the same time there is often cut too quickly and the overview is often lacking. Fortunately, the last big fights of the film make up for a lot, especially the confrontation between Chu and Fire-Wind. This fight, most remarkable when they fight each other in the air, wedged between two walls, at least manages to enrapture the martial arts enthusiast. Other strengths are the photography of the beautiful environments and, although not optimally exploited, the “personalities” of the swords themselves, which look fascinating and have interesting effects. ‘Seven Swords’ offers quite some entertainment in terms of martial arts, but is unfortunately too often slowed down by weak subplots, remains too impersonal in its characterizations, and treats the central objects too little exciting to be able to rise to great heights.

In fact, the film sometimes has to do its best to keep the viewer’s attention at all. At two and a half hours, the film is simply too long in this case. Or too short. The film has been reduced from a four-hour epic to the current running time, and you get the idea that this duration is a kind of cinematic no man’s land. The film should either be longer to give all elements more depth and relevance, or shorter to remove some meaningless subplots and thus create a tighter film. Anyway, it doesn’t seem to stop with this part. Hark wants to turn this story, it seems, into a six-part epic. Maybe in a next part, or in a possible “director’s cut”, we will learn more about the Seven Swords and that the story really comes to life for us.