Customer Reviews

Seven Swords

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

What starts out as a very violent and interesting movie ends up sort of floating the rest of the way. They don't have a lot of character development. Some characters you will understand but most will leave you with a lot of questions. Even Donnie Yen's character who they probably went the most in depth on didn't get full treatment. Maybe it was just that he was speaking Korean bugged me. It is just weird. There is nothing to really carry the story, except the General who is always going to come after the seven swordsmen and the villagers they are protecting. While the violence is well done and the General's top soldiers are truly wicked and have great battle sequences, everything else is just way too standard. The villian is ruthless and just cruel as he can be, the heroes are all very honorable, just nothing really exciting happens. The villain was by far my favorite character but he is not the main character. The acting is good and has some very nice touches with Lau Kar Leung playing Fu and Jason Pao Paio playing the leader of the town. The soundtrack is great. The locations and cinematography are stunning. Costumes really don't get any better than this. I liked the unique editing. The special effects are great and it was done by Weta Workshop who did the CGI for The Lord Of the Rings movies. Unfortunately all of this cannot overcome a story that just doesn't draw you in. By the end of it you realize that the swords were the main story which I liked and the final fight isn't too bad. Actually, the action starts out very well but doesn't really get good again until the end. You will most likely want to watch this movie again since its not half bad, it just doesn't make complete sense. After seeing it once and watching it again, for me there will be no 3rd viewing. I would no doubt watch a part 2 if Tsui Hark ever decides to makes it but I have heard talk of this ever since this "first part" was made and after a while it is too easy to forget about a movie project. I found the TV show 'Seven Swordsmen' with Vincent Zhao and Ada Choi much more enjoyable. Of course, it had a lot more time to explain the characters being 39 one hour episodes long. I was hoping to buy this movie and prove the other reviewers wrong but it just didn't happen. Luckily there are enough extras on this to keep me busy for a while.

Dragon Dynasty puts outs out the uncut version as opposed to the shortened version which is widely distributed. The sound and picture are truly some of the best you will find. 5.1 English and 5.1 with the original soundtrack. When the Dragon Sword gets pulled out expect a roar from the subwoofer. It is sad how neither Dragon Dynasty or Image's releases have had the subtitles properly in the black bars with all of them being widescreened. I suppose this is minor.

Special features include a feature commentary with the director of the movie Tsui Hark and Hong Kong film expert Bey Logan. That is 154 minutes with these 2. Very enjoyable. While I didn't love the movie, you may have, and this is the best special feature you could ever imagine. Not to mention the rest of the extras.

Six extended and deleted scenes and one 10 minute alternate take(final fight). Best part of this is that we get WAYYYYY more Donnie Yen action.

Four 5-7 minute behind the scenes featurettes.

Interviews include 45 minutes from Tsui Hark. Talk about in depth, with the commentary you get 200 minutes of interview time with the director. He knows there were problems with the movie as a whole and is not afraid to talk about any of it. Can't really complain about this special feature.

26 minutes with Donnie Yen. He talks about what is was like playing his character and gives his thoughts on the director and the movie.

18 minutes with Zhang Jing Chu talking about where she grew up and how she became an actress. I love the quote on her childhood about being 3 years older than the other people in her class. She says "her parents wanted her to be simply outstanding." At 16 years old she wants to become an artist which her parents disagree with. She ends up running away! Wonderful interview.

26 minutes with Duncan Lai talking about his windsurfing career and getting into the movies. Nice to get all the info provided here since I have never heard of him before.

Amazingly all of these interviews are English. I guess it is just a coincidence that they all spoke the langauge.

There is also a making of that is about 20 minutes long and is accompanied by some very good music. This includes interviews and a look behind the scenes. Steve Tung Wai and Xin Xin Xiong are the credited action directors but I only saw Lau Kar Leung in all of the behind the scenes featurettes and this making of special feature. I guess it is just a given that Master Lau and Donnie Yen had a hand in the action. In the commentary though, they actually do credit Lau with the biggest part of the action and planning everything.

I wish the movie was good enough to give it a rating of at least a 4 but the DVD itself gets a 5 star rating for the amount of special features and the quality of it overall.

Yes the other reviewers are correct. Its difficult to go into a lot of character development when you have 7 characters (not counting the bad guys) to fit into a two hour movie. It would have been nice to find out more about the bad guys also. And yes you have to "fill in the blanks" because it doesn't explain a lot but hey its not a four hour movie so they can only do so much. But you can also simply relax and just enjoy an action flix. It reminded me of the Magnificent 7 and 7 Samurai in that there are 7 of them coming to the aid of a 'helpless' village against the bad guys. If you like action/martial arts movies at least rent this one.
While its not the best action flix its not the worst neither. I certainly enjoyed it more than Crank (which I had high expectations for, hoping it would be as good as Transporter.)

I'd give it 3 1/2+ stars but bumped it up to 4 rather than down to 3 due to the extra features along with an uncut version (haven't viewed that just yet but did go through most of the interviews.)

I'm considering getting the Seven Swordsmen DVD box set which according to reviewers of that TV Series is a more detailed story about the individual characters.

Unlike Seven Samurais (by Akira Kurosawa) & the Magnificent Seven (American version) which explored the pscyhes of the rogues who formed the seven characters and their relationships with villagers that they were protecting, Seven Swords is more akin to a manga (comic books) where the seven characters were literally two dimensional. The seven swords from Mountain Tian had their own distinctive personalities and they only fitted to the beholders. I believe that Tsui Hark is to a certain extent influenced by Lord of the Rings trilogy where the so called baddies had those gothic-emo look (talking about mixing the old with the new). Considering that this is a triple joint venture with various film studios, more budget is expended in giving it a more authentic look by filming it at the picturesque XinJiang. There's also a subplot of love triangle between the main character (Donnie Yen) and the Korean female love interest. Truthfully, the movie feels a tad slow with nonstop action sequence. Perhaps, I expect Seven Swords to have more depth. For those that are enthusiastic with martial arts flick, this movie might not disappoint but for those that are into slow and arty martial arts flick such as the Banquet, this is definitely NOT the movie for you. Commendable effort.

Seven unique swordsmen(including one swords-woman) band together to save a village and its people from the evil General Fire-Wind. And that's about all you need to know about the plot... and that's what is so great about this film! Although two and a half hours long it has so many fantastic characters and battles you won't find yourself checking the timer on the DVD player once. For those who find Wuxia films like Hero, House Of Flying Daggers, and Curse Of The Golden Flower to be perfect you may lose interest in this quickly. Gone is alot of the "beautiful" and artistic fights only to be replaced with more brutal swordplay action that leaves heads split and limbs detached... and thankfully next to zero flying! Many reviewers have blasted the movie for cutting its original runtime of over four hours(!) to the aforementioned two and a half, and although I'm one of the fans who would love to see the full version too, I can't knock the reasoning for the edits(although a second disc with the full-length film would have been nice Dragon Dynasty!) and they seem to have been done as well as was posible. It's true that you don't get to know all of the characters as good as you would like, but you get enough to keep you more than interested in them until the very end. Another knock is the stylish garb of the villains, who look like they have been displaced from a Mad Max movie rather then ancient China. But still, once you see just how vicious and ruthless they are, the costumes seem like a perfect choice. This is a must see for fans of Asian cinema, epic action films, or just plain old good movies... not to mention it's a nice return to form for director Tsui Hark(The Blade, Zu Warriors From The Magic Mountain, Once Upon A Time In China 1-3).

I actually bought this movie after hearing its soundtrack, and was not disappointed. Apparently, the original book was huge and complex, and the task of condensing it into a movie was akin to trying to take the entire "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and putting it into one movie. That being said, it tends to leave the viewer begging for more details. I believe the director did an admirable job with what he had, and the actors themselves were spot-on! I think that the fact we WANT to know more says that it was engaging enough to make us curious. I am even tempted to read the 700-800 page book it was based off of, and it is apparently just the first of a series of books about the Seven Swords. It may well turn into the Chinese/Martial Arts version of Harry Potter (for adults, that is)...

This is one of the better period films that I have enjoyed recently. It involves all the things that made people love CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON and CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER and more than enough action to keep an action buff like me entertained. I think that when Asian directors try to stay true to their own history, legends and myths, it presents a special concern for them. They want the film to be as true as possible and still be recieved well be American audiences. I think this director pulled it off very well. I would highly recommend this film to anyone.

Based in the In the mid 1600's Seven Swords revolves around death, greed, and of course seven heroes. The Manchurians have taken over China and built the Qing Dynasty. The new government is banning the practice of Martial Arts fearing that the villages that practice it could rebel. This ban is far worst than you can imagine, the services of the Fire-Wind army are acquired to help make this law certain. The only thing the army cares about is money and they make a profit off eliminating entire villages that practice martial arts to make sure a martial artists never walks the earth again. The next village is the final frontier, Martial Village and Fire-Wind has their eyes set on it. After learning this information from an old man named Fu Qingzhu (Liu Chia-Liang) escaping Fire-Wind to save the art. You may remember Liu from Drunken Master 2.

In seek of help Fu accompanied by two villagers go searching for the Heavenly Mountains. Heavenly Mountains give them help, 4 fighters and seven swords. Three swords go to Fu and the two villagers but the only one of them who is truly skilled is Fu. After receiving this help the seven swords hurry back to the village but do they get there in time. The three star rating was a hard one to decide on simply because this is a great movie but things are missing. The biggest being that the movie is edited to about 2 hours and 33 minutes but the original unedited film is said to be about 4 hours long. The editing is horrible; too much scene jumping and you feel like you missed things throughout the entire movie. You'll be sitting there asking questions like when did they get there or do that? Who is that? And when did he learn to do that?

Now of course since this is called "Seven Swords" the comparisons with "Seven Samurai" may come flying and yea it's like it and no it's not as good but this is still a descent film. If Dragon Dynasty were to put a second disc in the case with the unedited version like they did with "The Protector" this movie would get a way higher rating from me. I have so many things I loved about this movie though one being the amazing fight scenes and choreography. Donnie Yen was the best of them all and his character also got most of the spotlight. The things they thought up for this movie is sick, like sword fights in tight cramped spaces, which may sound impossible, but they definitely pulled it off.

The acting was really good, the camera angles were great, and though the picture was cool it could've been better lit. I understand that bad character development may kill the movie a bit for some which is another thing that can probably be chalked up to the bad editing. The cool thing is that this could definitely be mad into a sequel; I think there is a plan to make a couple more. The characters sure so good that they could have their own movie after these films especially Donnie Yen who deserves one. Seven Swords is a film that could be great if that other hour and 30 minutes can be put back in but for right now take it as it is cause it's worth seeing.

This is the modern day Magnificent Seven. If you are a Donnie Yen fan it is a keeper. Movie was excellent.

I'm not sure why this movie has received so much flack! I enjoyed it, and continue to watch it. The fighting is hardcore, this is definitely not for the squeamish, though. I heard awhile back, that there was going to be a sequel, but most likely it was put to rest, from the backlash of the less intrigued which, seriously sucks for those who enjoyed it.

Seven swords is a really good movie, but feels like its a smaller portion of something bigger. Then when you go through the special features you find out there was a cut that was almost four hours. This helped me understand why there were so many gaps in the story, and backstory. But the cut provided was very entertaining, with some great fights, and some very unique bad guys, which is often a rarity in kung fu movies. The only real complaint I had, beyond the aforementioned wholes in the story, would be the dubbing. Most was very off, but donnie yens voice sounded more like he was michael clark duncan than donnie yen. Given I've seen donnie yen do his own dubbing several times I was suprised that not only he didn't do it, but that he had such a different sounding voice. Otherwise the movie is entertaining, but more of a portion of a whole concept. Worth watching