Seven Swords Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Seven Swords Blu-ray Movie Review

Too large and lumbering for its own good, 'Seven Swords' nonetheless is one of the more visually spectacular films to emerge from China in recent years.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 10, 2010

Today’s scripture passage from the Filmgoer’s Bible is taken from the Book of Kurosawa: “. . .and Seven Samurai begat The Magnificent Seven which begat. . .Seven Swords?” Well, maybe not really, but even Swords’ director Tsui Hark, in the enjoyable commentary included on this Blu-ray, talks about the foolishness of even attempting to follow in Akira’s rather formidable footsteps, whether or not Seven Swords can truthfully be seen as an overall homage to the great Japanese master’s iconic 1954 film masterpiece. While both films portray an Asian feudal past and feature a septet as their focal points, Seven Swords actually adheres to its title by trying to make the weapon itself, not necessarily those who brandish it, the mystical center of its filmic universe. Though there are obvious callbacks to both Kurosawa's film and the John Sturges Americanized remake, Seven Swords actually owes its genesis to a popular Chinese wuxia (martial arts) novel by Liang Yusheng. While the film might rightly be seen as a cinematic novel itself, with a wide array of characters and subplots, not to mention an at times overwhelming length, it evidently strays fairly far from the original source novel, keeping only the broad outlines of Yusheng's piece while maintaining the titular seven weapons as a prime focal point.

"Let's finish decapitating them so we can get to the rave!"

It’s the mid-seventeenth century, and China has undergone a sea-change as the Manchurians and their Qing dynasty have replaced the Mings. One of the first acts of the Qings is a ban on martial arts, and a former Ming soldier, Fire-Wind (Sun Honglei), is out to rid China of any martial arts “outlaws,” killing thousands and taking the bounties offered by the government for disposing of any practitioners of kung fu and its siblings, thereby amassing a rather large personal fortune. Fire-Wind has decimated the entire northwest region of China and has only final village to pillage, the portentously named Martial Village, which is home to many martial arts masters, including elderly Fu Qingzhu (Liu Jialiang), who takes it upon himself to craft a defense plan. Enter two warriors from the village, who with Qingzhu travel to a mystical mountain where a master forger named Shadow-Glow agrees to help, bringing in four of his disciples and also crafting seemingly magically empowered swords custom made for each of these new “magnificent seven”. This sets up the major conflict of Seven Swords, with Fire-Wind and his hordes battling our seven heroes, but it also points out one of this film’s central weaknesses—there are simply too many characters, none of them particularly well defined, to really capture the audience’s imagination. We know in broad strokes for whom we’re supposed to root and root against, but when Seven Swords tries to hone in on any given individual subplot, it’s largely for naught, as virtually no backstory has been given to us, and there’s therefore no anchor to ground these characters for the viewer.

One of the other problems with Seven Swords, and one which would take a doctoral thesis to really cover in any detail, is the glut of sidebars the main battle plot stumbles into, including that of a Korean slave-concubine of Fire-Wind’s (the lovely Kim So-Yeon) who is freed by the seven but who then may be a spy, leading to some close calls for the putative heroes. Hark has a fondness for extremely large canvasses, but he has yet to master the epic genius of, say, David Lean, where immense, even gargantuan, stories are told through the lens of one or two main characters, with the primary characters and supporting roles all well defined, there for specific purposes to propel the plot and give the audience insight into the personal effects large sociopolitical upheavals can have on specific individuals. Here, in Seven Swords, it’s a topsy-turvy, albeit fitfully involving, approach, where the individuals seem almost tangential to the larger scale storytelling. It is in fact almost redolent of one of those ancient Asian silk screens, lovely tableaux when viewed from afar, but which reveal little if any detail when examined up close.

There’s no denying that Seven Swords has an epic feel, especially with regard to the visual splendor that characterizes the best of Hark’s work. This is a film full of stunning Chinese vistas that help to create an almost alien time and place. While the production design and cinematography are both incredibly evocative, with gigantic sets and some interesting desaturated effects (especially impressive in the opening sequence which is comprised entirely of reds, blacks and whites), the costume design is simply patently bizarre, recasting feudal China as a sort of proto-punk paradise with leather and stud-clad warriors who seem just as likely to spout a Sid Vicious lyric as they are to espouse any more traditionally Asian philosopher. While this strange approach may be seen by some to be hip and happening, it’s simply too dissociative in terms of the broader historical context of Seven Swords to be effective, and in fact is a detriment to the film’s overall ambience.

Seven Swords seems to have fallen victim to a weird sort of middle ground, where in its final cut it was neither as long (and perhaps overly complex) as Hark wanted it (reputedly more than four hours), nor as short and to the point as some judicious editing would have provided. Instead we’re privy to a sort of filmic mishmash which is muddled and confusing, intercut with some graphic and well choreographed battle scenes. There’s little of the lyricism of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon here, but Hark deserves some kudos for tackling an overwhelmingly immense story and delivering at the very least one of the more visually sumptuous Chinese features in recent years. What Hark needs to concentrate on now is his actual storytelling ability, where all these admittedly impressive shots add up to something more than mere eye candy. Hark sets Seven Swords up for a sequel in its closing moments, but several salient lessons hopefully will be learned before that follow up is greenlit.

Seven Swords Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

There's certainly a lot to look at in Seven Swords, and the Blu-ray's AVC encoded 1080p image (with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio) is often quite spectacular, both in more au naturel scenes as well as some of the heavily post-processed scenes, such as the very interesting looking desaturated prologue segment, where the film presents a really arresting palette of reds, blacks and whites. Detail is mostly excellent here, especially in the many close-ups (Hark in fact seems to favor midrange to close-up shots a lot of the time) where everything from the weave of individual fabrics to the pancake makeup on various characters can be seen quite clearly. The film is hampered by a noticeable softness in some of the long range exterior shots, but my hunch is these are endemic of the source elements which this Blu-ray is reproducing. This is a colorful pageant of a film, with a number of gorgeous lighting effects and some really beautiful footage of Chinese environments. Contrast and black levels are both excellent, though the post-processing of some sequences is intentionally blown out, leaving a slightly surreal look.

Seven Swords Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

If you can get past the fact that no lossless audio options are offered on this Blu-ray, both the mixed Cantonese/Mandarin Dolby Digital 5.1 and the English dub, also in Dolby Digital 5.1, provide a remarkably robust and immersive experience. I chose the original language(s) track, which does reveal its multi-lingual origins with some noticeable fidelity differences in ADR looped dialogue. Otherwise, this is a really fun and effects-filled soundtrack, from the opening rumble of the "avalanche" (really the rumble of attacking hooves) to a number of very immersive panning effects when horsemen gallop by. The metallic "ching" of the swords is bright and appropriately brittle, and the battle segments especially are a whirl of surround activity, with the clang of blades and various punches flying in from every direction. While some of the dubbing is indeed a bit on the sloppy side (though certainly nothing approaching the English version, which I spot-checked), dialogue is for the most part clear and well-mixed into the overall soundfield. The underscore can be a bit overpowering at times, but is often quite effective and well mixed, especially (somewhat ironically) in the quieter, more "personal" moments.

Seven Swords Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

A triptych of above average extras supplement this package, including:

• Commentary by director Hark and Asian film expert Bey Logan is frankly a lot more entertaining than the film itself a lot of the time, as the two discuss following in Kurosawa's footsteps;
• Deleted and Extended Scenes (SD; 23:22), which offer some alternate versions of several key segments and at least hint at what Hark's purported four hour version might have been like;
• Interviews with Donny Yen (SD; 25:43), Zhang Jing-Chu (SD; 17:57), and Duncan Lai (SD; 25:50), with the trio of stars (all speaking English) both appealing and informative as they discuss their personal backgrounds and contributions to Seven Swords.

Seven Swords Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Seven Swords aims high and unfortunately falls short. That said, this is a visually spectacular film that overcomes at least some of its shortcomings with a feast for the eyes and some extremely visceral battle segments. Hark would do well to study his forebears Kurosawa and in fact Sturges, for their narrative coherence within a grand canvas. If Hark can hone his storytelling skills, he obviously has the visual panache to create his own masterpiece. Seven Swords is a stepping stone in the right direction.