Perhaps director Ching Siu-Tung's
finest achievement, this film is the epitome of the director's style: brash juxtapositions of violence and slapstick and blistering pacing that would give a comic book whiplash, martial arts choreography
that laughs in the face of physics, and plotting that seems to collapse
like so many dominos, only to reassemble itself just in the nick of time. Ching
first made a name for himself with the Tsui Hark-produced Chinese Ghost Story
in 1987, but Swordsman 2 (a very loose sequel to King Hu's Swordsman
-- one can watch the movie without knowledge of the latter) frees him from the
dictates of straight (pun intended) story and character considerations, and in return he reimagines film
as pure motion, in which all moods, action, humor and narrative soar past as kinetic images and sounds. The film requires repeat viewings to understand the wildly complex political and emotional machinations, but in the meantime, Ching invites us all to fly, and gauge the speed of our own eyeballs.
Jet Li plays successfully against type as the boozing titular swordsman, as does Rosamund Kwan as his tough highland girlfriend, but the film belongs to Brigitte Lin and her career-defining role as a martial arts villain who changes from a man to a woman as the story progresses. Her character distilled to chilling glares, sultry amusement, and finally heartbreaking sighs, Lin is a painting sprung to vigorous life. And of course, there are those unearthly action scenes. Swords whirl like helicopters in the air and always find their way back to their masters' hands. Opponents and horses are sawed bloodlessly in half. Martial artists twirl like ballerinas on steroids, but with the same ineffable grace. Sewing needles and threads soar butterfly-like before they pierce unwary enemies. Even cannonballs and man-sized hooks are manipulated with weightless ease. Behind all this mind-bending fantasy, though, one catches undercurrents of true melancholy and tragedy. These warriors are happiest when they clash with one another, but there is always the sneaking awareness that once playtime is over and the survivors leave the field, life (and the movie) won't be the same.
As is the case with many of these Hong Kong DVDs, the picture is clean (though not necessarily "cleaned up"), there are language and subtitle options galore, and the extras are limited -- in this case, a music video, and cast and crew credits.