Saturday, December 22, 2018

WUXIA WEEKEND: THE SUPREME SWORDSMAN

This film was a pleasant watch. I hadn't seen it before, and I honestly thought it looked and sounded a bit dull, but when I watched it yesterday it was a delight. This is the kind of movie that refreshes your enjoyment of a genre. I haven't been surprised by the story, tone and fight choreography of a wuxia film in a while. The Supreme Swordsman managed to surprise me on countless fronts, and delivered a really good tale of martial ambition and revenge. It stars Derek Yee and Jason Pai-Piao, who both do a stellar job. Jason Pai-Piao plays a man obsessed with being number one in the martial world, and wants to build his 100 Sword Villa by defeating the best swordsman and placing their blades on display in his hall. When he kills the father of Derek Yee's Yan Bei, the focus becomes revenge and the viewer is exposed to a much richer and more eccentric jianghu than the first half of the movie reveals.

We talk a lot about the tone shift in the discussion but this is a film that uses tone shift in an interesting way. As the tone of the movie changes, we are drawn deeper and deeper into the world of Black Magic Clan, and we learn more about Yan Bei's father. The movie also is more than meets the eye. It is a film I know I need to see again because there is clearly a lot going on in terms of parallels between characters and references to other films. You can listen to our discussion below:


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