Swordsman (1990)
Director: King Hu, Tsui Hark, Ching Siu-Tung
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Rather tendentiously credited to the veteran King Hu (it was supposed to be a ‘comeback’ film for the director of A Touch of Zen, but he left the production very early on and none of his footage remains), this actually plays like a vulgar and resolutely modern-spirited pastiche of the kind of movie he used to make. As such, it’s a lot of fun: a roller-coaster ride through memories of the great Chinese swordplay movies of the ’60s. It plays out the joke about an explosion in a dye-factory, and then romps through a series of gravity-defying fight scenes in which the antagonists not only clash in mid-air and slice each other in half, but also unleash darts, poisons and swarms of deadly insects at each other.Author: TR
Cast & crew
Director: King Hu, Tsui Hark, Ching Siu-Tung
Producer: Tsui Hark
Cast: Samuel Hui, Jacky Cheung, Cecilia Yip, Fennie Yuen, Cheung Mun full cast
Duration: 120 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.



What do you think?
Post your review now