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OK, I'm a massive admirer of Tsui Hark. I think he is the greatest living filmmaker. His films touch part of my psyche that are left unmoved by any other filmmaker, even though they still manage to entertain others; such a stylistic and intentionally universal fusion is part of his uniqueness that still can not be categorized by today's critical measures. But... Nothing, repeat NOTHING prepared me for the sensory explosion that is Seven Swords, and that is a genre film, though, unlike any others made so far. I had been following the production for over 15 months, watching the trailer online... counting the days... But I was worried. Some suggestions that Hark has over-reached himself, was self-indulgent. So with optimism, but trepidation I took the plunge... and well, let me tell you that now i may have found out what the cinema looks like in heaven. This is possibly the best film i've ever seen in my life. I wish Kurosawa saw this version so he would change his own.
Why is it so wonderful? The only word I can give is that it, unlike any film that I have seen since O.Stone's Heaven & Earth, is deeply, deeply spiritual. We have familiar Tsui Hark motifs - the barriers between languages, searching for the path and purpose in life, the endings with no relation to the plot but only to the meaning of the whole film, strong women that don't lose their own feminity, the fighting against the impending fate - but here that take on a completely new and more satisfying meaning, as this time Tsui Hark is treating this much more seriously, with more concern for the characters plights and meaning behind each character's action. Tsui Hark uses his poetic imagery to set our senses aglow with the sheer wonder and of purity of the indigenous lifestyle which he lets counterpoised by the opposite lifestyle led by the greed, hate, jealousy, dishonesty, betrayal and violence. This is cinema at the level of what I can only term 'super-expression' - imagery communicates complex interaction between things and the way our senses perceive them, but it does so at an incredibly elevated level. The most remarkable thing for the casual viewer is how much Tsui manages to express complex and wonderful things completely without dialogue. Yang Yun Chong (Leon Lai) barely speaks to others, just like Green Pearl (Kim So Yuen) but we see and sense their emotions through their facial expressions. The masterful scene at the lake serves as a perfect example of the communication of love despite the language barriers. We sense what they are thinking through Hark's absolutely magnificent use of imagery and sound.
There are other motifs. People hold hands. They express themselves through their tone of voice or breathing. And, yet again, Hark has found a wonderful vehicle for his vision in the form of Green Pearl, which might as well represents Tsui Hark's own point of view. We feel the pain inside her, we feel the hidden passion for life through her. Her screen presence and the range of emotions that she suggests with so little dialogue is little short of miraculous.
For people who love the cinema not just on the basis of the quality of the stories that it tells, but the manner in which it tells them, this must be one of the films of the decade. Many people have said that the cinema is like a language, but that is to belittle it. It is not like A language, it is simply like language itself. Just like there are many languages, there are many forms of cinema. And in each language there are masters of the language who excel in expressing themselves in poetry, prose or through the philosophy. In English we had Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. Now, in sort of a 'postmodern philosophic cinema' at a higher level even than Stan Brakhage, we have Tsui Hark. But with one oddity, Tsui Hark represents an eminently new form of film language that was still not registered yet by the wider community as it's practically still way ahead of our time and waiting to be resurrected.
Yes, Seven Swords is a genuine masterpiece of a new form of film language as well as the genre itself. See it if you want to see something what you haven't seen before. See it if you want to see a new evolvement of cinema. See it if you want to see an actioner with brains and the probe plunged deeply into the human soul and nature. I can guarantee you that this is not another momentary crowd-pleaser hit like Oldboy or Battle Royale. This film can completely change your life! This film will be remembered.
score 10/10
eternalsunshinee 14 June 2006
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1393451/ |
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2-4-2021 04:13:13