The Blade
12/19/00
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Chiu Man Cheuk, Chan Ho, Hung Yan Yan

On (Cheuk), a man who sells swords, searches for the killers of his father, whom he never knew, with the help of Iron Head (Chan Ho).

This chaotic movie is about as insane as it gets. Put this on your shelf with Legend of the Wolf and you'll have yourself a nice collection. The Blade has fast camera work like the latter movie and extreme swordplay, which make everything so intense, I had trouble taking it all in at once, much like Donnie Yen's film. Chiu Man Cheuk puts on his best performance ever as far as I know, convincing as a man who wants to avenge his father's death. Hung Yan Yan, though a role that puts him mainly at the end, is extremely powerful as well and is as agile as ever, as is Man Cheuk. The action seems to be based on almost pure adrenaline and the will to kill, and Tsui Hark (who directed this) seemed to know exactly what people do under such chemical circumstances... I don't know what I'm talking about.

There's a lot of action in this film, a lot of good action. The first one is a monk beating up a bunch of hunters, which is almost eerie. The monk is gigantic. His arms are bigger than most of the hunters' heads. He is able to take on some 15 men by knocking them out with his bare hands, but what was weird too was the almost lack of sound when he hit them. I don't know exactly what it sounds like to really hit a face, but I imagine it's not as loud as most movies make it out to be, but more of a thump, which is what is here. After that the monk is brutally killed with his head scraping along a rough bumpy rock wall. Ugh. Not a whole lot of choreography, but gritty and realistic.



*shivers* Man Cheuk goes searching for a girl in a small temporary village set up by the hunters, and he doesn't seem to know how to fight because all he's done is been a blade dealer, so he just swings a big blade around (Chiu Man Cheuk can't fake looking bad though, he'll look good whatever he does), and gets his right arm caught in a double layered bear trap, which he swings around because he can't get to his sword, but ends up getting most of that arm cut off, and then goes absolutely berzerk. He chases down a guy who's dragging the trap with the arm still in it, grabs the guy, and since he can't do much he just bites at his neck. I've watched this a couple times and it still gives me the chills. Chiu Man Cheuk is about as realistic as HK actors get these days.



Chan Ho's fights aren't as impressive, though in the next scene he goes haywire on a guy because he wants a woman who's already taken. It's almost anime-ish the way the two of them are constantly moving with the swords going every which way as they go (only better than anime, can't stand that stuff). I couldn't even get a decent screen capture. But the guy doesn't impress me. He overdoes it and the face he puts on is lame.



Man Cheuk's training scenes are more interesting. His moves are spin, slash with power. That takes care of it because, basically, he can't do much else. He's learning it all from a little book which is half burnt, so he has to figure it out for himself. While supported from a rope, Man Cheuk swings around like crazy and accidentally takes out a huge beam, so he figures it out pretty well, and goes outside, cuts the rope, and goes at it. Cool stuff. Lots of Tsui Harkisms.



And he puts it to test against a bunch of guys on horses. First he knocks them all down (all of them) and is jumping all over the place, then takes them when they're all on foot. Impressive.



At the blade master's home, where everyone works and lives (it's like the Shaolin temple), they get invaded and it's bloody, but not as impressive as the other stuff in the movie until Hung Yan Yan finally gets involved and uses two swords to take on the blade master, but then they go outside...



...where Man Cheuk is waiting for him. Yan Yan killed Man Cheuk's father, and he wants revenge. I can't begin to explain this fight thoroughly. Cheuk's blade, which is a half blade left behind by his father, is on a chain, and Yan Yan has two long hooked swords. They take up the entire space assigned to them, with both of them yelling the entire time and going nuts on eachother. Yan Yan is able to fly, but this isn't your regular wire flying, this is scary. Man Cheuk is facing the camera after pushing Yan Yan that way, and he gets disoriented for a half second, turns around and Yan Yan drops from above the bamboo. It's very insane. I had to puff some air out of my lungs when it was over because I think I held by breath for a while when I saw it. And keep in mind that this fight is 5 minutes long too...



What can I say? It's incredible, something that I'm gonna watch over and over again. Man Cheuk, fighting with his left arm the entire time, is very impressive, to the point where he could outshine most hk action guys that walk onto the screen. All the choreography is ultra impressive, with the camera all over the place, but you can see what's happening at every instant. Awesome.

5/5

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