Customer Reviews

Book and Sword

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are looking for a fun way to waste 2 hrs this is a good movie that could have been great. The sticking point being some of the action sequences were so terrible they were laughable such as archers firing bolts that had no trajectory and velocity slow enough to bounce off jello but who cares it's fun! The cinematography and color quality was excellent however and the film does indeed appear to be a tv show / soap opera type of thing or something like you'd get with a history channel recreation, it's very sharp and detailed just had an "odd" feeling to it.. Worth the money I spent. fans of this genre can do much worse than this film.. Just wish I knew who the actors were ( no english translation for the credits, )

If you can get past some wire-fu sequences this movie isn't half bad. The martial arts action is what you'd expect from movies nowadays. This appears to be a compilation of a TV series, although I can't be sure. In the end the story is somewhat fulfilling and it's a good way to spend a couple hours.

Book and Sword is a popular book which has seen many film and TV adaptations done on it. This version was released in 2002 (actually called The Book and Sword - Gratitude and Revenge)remained very popular in China when it was released, unfortunately Tai Seng tends release only half versions of these shows outside Asia and this being one of them make this show revealing that its missing a lot of content. They release it here with 3DVDs (1DVD for the first part and 2DVDs for the final battle). They cut WAY too much story here, as you see the emperor in the first scene (with no regards as to how he got there) and fourth brother and old chief already going to see him telling him about his identity as a Han right after that. The whole story is cut out and just moves to the fight scenes instead one after another which is not what the whole show is about. If you want to see this the way it is was meant to be seen, then I suggest buying the complete set (which is actually anywhere between 10-16 DVDs - 46 episodes, clocking in at 40~41 mins per episode). Only recommended for casual fans or those that are looking for something different. This is very a good show (I've seen the original uncut version) but not this version that there selling here on Amazon and ebay among other places.

-There is a newer version of this show that was released in 2009 which features Adam Cheng and Nikki Chow, however the story on that one is much different than this and the names are different too. 2002 version has the Cantonese names being used while the 2009 version uses the Mandarin names.

This is the first of two DVDs that attempt to bring Louis Cha's novel "The Book & The Sword" to the 'big' screen. It probably does it as well as could be done, but as it is hard to capture the nuances of such a complicated book, the director and screen writers have settled for some rather flashy martial arts action.

This review doesn't cover a rating of the story but rather of the martial arts fight choreography of the series. I usually look up reviews of martial arts movies to see if someone has talked about whether the fights in the movies were very good or not and whether the fights were inventive or complex. I am happy to say that I fast forwarded to the fights in Book And Sword and they were really good. Some were better than others ofcourse both in length and in complexity but overall I really enjoyed watching the characters do their stuff. Therefore, as I was pleased with this movie I subsequently purchased it's sequal, Book And Sword: The Final Battle, and was equally as impressed. The story does seem interesting as I actually did watch a little of it here and there. The acting seems quite good as well. But like I said, if you are like me and are just looking to collect some martial arts movies with some good fights, then you will want to add Book And Sword to your collection.

I felt a bit disappointed in this film I saw no fun in it and the action was lame, story line also got a little boring after awhile expected more in the quality of the fight scenes