Watch Secret Service of Imperial Court instead

desperadous

From all the reviews that I read above me seems like no one knows that 14 Blades is a Shaw Brothers remake of the 1984 movie Secret Service of Imperial Court directed by Tony Liu Jun Guk.

Now that I got that out of the way the modern version 14 blades is directed by mostly hit or miss Daniel Lee.His credits include Black Mask,What Price Survival,Three Kingdoms Resurrection of the Dragon,Star Runner Aka Kumite,Dragon Squad aka Dragon Heat and the upcoming Wuxia White Vengeance.As you can see from those credits most people that have seen his movies only Black Mask and What Price Survival were their favorites.

The cast includes both new actors old school Kung Fu actors from the Shaw Brothers era like Chen Kwan Tai,Wu Ma,Lam Chi Tai,Fung Hak On.From Golden Harves of course Sammo Hung which has only a supporting part and does not lay a finger on nobody,Duel to the Death's Damian Lau (if you blinked you missed him because i don't even remember him being in it).Wu Chun who looks like a pretty boy Asian Jack Sparrow,Vicky Zhao Whei,and Donnie Yen filling up for Leung Kar Yan aka Beardy.

The Cinematography is nice too look at as well as the special effects.Donnie Yen barely saves this movie and the supporting cast seems to be weak and not backing him up at all.There is both some wire fu and some good fighting scenes in this movie but unless you're a Donnie Yen fan this one is an OK movie better than Three Kingdoms but not better than its rivals like Ip Man movies and True Legend by Yuen Woo Ping.Watch the Original it is 10 times better and did not need wire fu or GGI to make it a good movie.

score 7/10

desperadous 8 April 2012

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2593611/