Seven Swords DVD Review

Seven Swords Movie Credits:

ryanizay's score:
4 out of 5

Extras score:
3.5 out of 5

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Seven Swords U.K. Distributor:

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Seven Swords Release Date:

16th Jan 2007

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Seven Swords Synopsis:

In the early 1600's, the Manchurians have taken over sovereignty of China and established the Ching Dynasty. While many nationalist revolts still brew within the martial artists' community, the newly set-up government immediately imposes a Martial Arts Ban, forbidding the practice of martial arts altogether in order to gain control and order. Wind Fire (Sun Hong-Lei), a surrendered military official from the previous dynasty, sees this as an opportunity to make a fortune for himself by helping to execute the new law. Greedy, cruel, and immoral, Wind Fire ravages the North-western China, and his next goal is to attack the final frontier, Martial Village. Fu Qingzhu, a retired executioner from the previous dynasty, feels the need to put a stop to this brutality and sets out to save Bowei Fortress. He brings Wu Yuanyin and Han Zhiban from the village with him to Mount Heaven to seek help from Master Shadow-Glow, a hermit who is a master of swords and leads a group of disciples of great swordsmanship. Master Shadow-Glow agrees to help, and orders four of his best disciples to go. Together with Chu Zhaonan, Yang Yunchong, Mulong, and Xin Longzi, the "Seven Swords" is formed and their heroic journey begins. As they lead the entire village to the road of a safer place, they begin to encounter mysterious confusion. Food and water is poisoned, and trails of escape are marked with signs leading the enemy to them. They soon realize that there is an undercover spy, and the "Seven Swords" must identify him/her before Wind Fire's army gets to them. Between this narrow gap of life and death, the situation is further complicated by the blossoms of love.

Seven Swords Review:

Seven Swords is a masterful epic done with great care. The costuming is elaborate and often grisly and disturbing. The soldiers on the dark side are covered in furs, spikes and wicked designs. Even more impressive than the costumes are the weapons. The swords in Seven Swords are amazingly creative and often bordering the line of what is possible, but ultimately extremely fun to watch. Watching the film I began to feel as though I were watching a science fiction version of Ran, but Seven Swords certainly has a great deal more than just production values to fall back on. There are many amazingly cool sequences in the film and the creative story stays entertaining for all 153 minutes. It may be somewhat difficult to keep track of all of the many characters and their interactions. At times even the action can be somewhat confusing in the choreography and how it was photographed so that there is some confusion as to what is going on. The high velocity speed at which the fighting takes place usually with many separate fights occurring at the same time is what makes the action somewhat hard to follow.

Seven Swords tells the story of seven martial arts practitioners who retrieve seven swords from a spiritual mountain. These swords each have a unique and special attribute and they are specifically given to the person they are best suited for. These seven are on a mission to stop a group of mercenary killers who have been sent to stop all martial arts which have been forbidden. Unfortunately they are given a price for the head of each they catch, so they just begin killing innocent villagers to make more money. The seven swords are all that stands between a village of innocent people and the brutal killers.

Seven Swords is directed by Tsui Hark (Once Upon a Time in China trilogy) and he has a commentary track on the DVD along with Hong Kong cinema expert Bey Logan on disc one of the Two-Disc Ultimate Edition DVD. The second disc includes many deleted and extended scenes proving that even at 153 minutes this film could have been much longer. There is also behind-the-scenes featurettes and a making-of featurette. There are also several storyboards and interviews as well as a number of trailers and TV spots for the film.