Very, very excellent

rory-74

The East Asian film industry has always been strong in it's own right, but recently it has clearly been exploding in terms of its appeal to a Western audience. The older Jet Li movies have attained a sort of cult status, but perhaps starting with "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Oriental cinema has really hit the mainstream. Hayao Miyazaki has even brought anime to the fore. "Seven Swords", I believe, is a great movie that marks yet another strong phase in the "easternization" of Western cinema. Given that Hollywood has failed recently to impress as much as it has in the past, it's key source material being old TV-shows, biopics and remakes largely of Eastern films, the shift of our attention east is not surprising. As with movies like "Hero", "Seven Swords" possesses some remarkable cinematography and even more remarkable fight choreography. To an extent the extremely well designed fight scenes are superior to many before it, specifically because of its rejection of wire-stunts. The result are some intense and believable fights that are far more aesthetically pleasing then, for example, watching Chow Yun Fat sail through the air. Many will appreciate, and rightly so, the strong ensemble cast featuring all round fine performances. Essentially I find very little to fault in this superb film!!! Hollywood can may attempt to defend their claim as the masters of cinema, but I'll eagerly await the day when they can produce a martial arts film of even nearly this ones quality. Until then, I'll continue to appreciate with great pleasure the steady flow of truly entertaining work coming from most notably China, Japan and Korea.

score 10/10

rory-74 23 October 2005

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1199920/