2005 Toronto Film Festival Report: Tsui Hark's Seven Swords".
Yeah, was looking forward to this film. It opened in Asia over July/August of this year. Saw Hark's confusing "Time and Tide" a couple of years back at the festival. Once again, Hark has not shown up for the screening.
Plot Outline: Seven warriors come together to protect a village from a diabolical General.
Seven Swords or was their five? Who the hell really knows? You never really get to understand the Swordsman at all. Why did one fly out of a mountain? Are there more than seven swords? Why are they gathered together on the mountain? Lots of these little details are left unanswered for this viewer. Did I mention this sucker ran 150 minutes? Really wanted to like this film, but didn't. The action scenes were disappointing overall. The end scene does contain some decent sword fighting, a cool scene between two sword men in a hallway. But damn, you have to wait 140 minutes for that.
"Seven Swords" is overlong, confusing but occasionally very beautiful to look at. Set Design, cinematography are interesting at times, but damn you have to care about the characters a little too. This is no "Hero".
Want to see Hawk do better swordplay? Check out "The Blade", much better film.
Yeah, was looking forward to this film. It opened in Asia over July/August of this year. Saw Hark's confusing "Time and Tide" a couple of years back at the festival. Once again, Hark has not shown up for the screening.
Plot Outline: Seven warriors come together to protect a village from a diabolical General.
Seven Swords or was their five? Who the hell really knows? You never really get to understand the Swordsman at all. Why did one fly out of a mountain? Are there more than seven swords? Why are they gathered together on the mountain? Lots of these little details are left unanswered for this viewer. Did I mention this sucker ran 150 minutes? Really wanted to like this film, but didn't. The action scenes were disappointing overall. The end scene does contain some decent sword fighting, a cool scene between two sword men in a hallway. But damn, you have to wait 140 minutes for that.
"Seven Swords" is overlong, confusing but occasionally very beautiful to look at. Set Design, cinematography are interesting at times, but damn you have to care about the characters a little too. This is no "Hero".
Want to see Hawk do better swordplay? Check out "The Blade", much better film.