Master Swordsman, The

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Summary

At the opening sequence, I thought, his movie is going to be amazing. In some ways it was... of those ways being amazingly long. This thing is well over 3 hours long. I have to admit, when I watched this, I was only half paying attention. Partially because after the first 60 minutes, with no resolution in sight, I started to get worn down. Concentrating on a movie for 200 minutes is hard.

I enjoyed it, but thought The Duel was much better. The stories are really close, obviously the movies are related in some way (if anyone knows the history, let me know). I like the fact that one is dramatic, and the other comedic. I just wish the serious one (that's The Master Swordsman]]) was half as long.

Details and Notes

One of the main characters in the film uses a technique based on utilizing one's fingers to catch an opponents weapon. I wonder if this has any basis in classic stories, or if it's an invention of the hyper-action school of modern Chinese action films. It's more than just an idea for this movie (I think The Duel was the other one I saw it in), though it may be a concept of the producer or something. I'd be fascinated to learn whether this off-the-wall style has entered the collective awareness of the consumer's of these films.

Random AV observation: this movie is filmed in a certain high contrast visual style common to other movies in the genre. Brightly lit dudes in pure white robes fighting against a dark, underlit background., vice versa. It's pretty, but really brings home the problems with interlaced video. When viewed on a high def monitor, the telcining in my copy is quite obvious, even with a good player. Plus, I think in some scenes they do this fade effect on the characters to visually simulate super speed, but it ends up interacting badly with the telcining for some reason, like the two compound each other.