Swordsman

Original title: Siu ngo gong woo

1990
TV-14
1h 58m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Jacky Cheung, Sharla Cheung, Samuel Hui, Siu-Ming Lau, Cecilia Yip, and Fennie Yuen in Swordsman (1990)

A kung-fu manual known as the sacred scroll is stolen from the Emperor's library. An army detachment is sent to recover it. Meanwhile, a young swordsman and his fellow disciple are accidenta... Read allA kung-fu manual known as the sacred scroll is stolen from the Emperor's library. An army detachment is sent to recover it. Meanwhile, a young swordsman and his fellow disciple are accidentally drawn into the chaos.A kung-fu manual known as the sacred scroll is stolen from the Emperor's library. An army detachment is sent to recover it. Meanwhile, a young swordsman and his fellow disciple are accidentally drawn into the chaos.

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 4 wins & 11 nominations

Trivia
King Hu was credited as the director but he allegedly left the project midway, and the film was completed by a team led by producer Hark Tsui.

Quotes
Ling Wu Chung: We are all made of flesh and blood, so why do we make such a mess of this world?

Connections
Followed by Swordsman II (1992)

User reviews15

Review

Featured review

10/10

A classic, nearly as good as Swordsman 2

Since Swordsman 2 is one of my favorites, I was delighted to find part one finally released on DVD. It is nearly as good, even better in some ways.

If you have not seen either, start with this one and get ready to enjoy 4 hours of primo wuxia.

Too bad that the cast completely changed between the 2 films (except for the excellent Fennie Yuen as Blue Phoenix) Most of the players in part one are as good, and I even preferred Cheung Man as Chief Ying to Rosamund Kwan who takes over in part two. I do think Jet Li in 2 is far better than Sam Hui in this one. Jet copies Sam Hui's style and character well, but is far more athletic and intense which really helps the action scenes in part 2. Sam sings well at least, which is important considering how much singing of "Hero of heroes" there is in part one!

A note about the cast list above: Michelle Reis and Rosamund Kwan are NOT in this film. Kiddo is played by Cecilia Yip and Ying by Cheung Man.

A classic pair of films then. Too bad part 3, "The East is Red" was such a letdown. The first two films stand on their own though, so no real loss.

One warning, if you are new to wuxia or Hong Kong films in general you may find the action in these films often too fast and incomprehensible. Repeated viewing will accustom you to the pacing, as well as allowing you to savor all the rich density of the storyline and its numerous characters.