Seven Swords Reviews

Monkey is funky he never stops...

but this film is a great big flop. I rented this expecting another crouching tiger/hero/house of flying daggers but got something as cheesy 'Monkey' without meaning to and without the humour. The premise for the film was good if a little bit tired, a group of villagers need protecting from evil invaders, so why not hire the services of 7 sword wielding martial artists, each with a mystical blade. The idea that they must master their emotions to master the blades was an interesting development, but unfortunately one that was never really explored. In fact much of the film was only half pursued and consequently some scenes and characters seemed to be just thrown in for no realpurpose, and other scenes and characters went unexplored or unaswered. Reading around this film appears to have suffered greatly from being edited down from 4+hrs to 2hrs, well the editor must have been asleep on the job and you will probably be asleep well before the end. Do yourself a favour and hire 'The Water Margin' series on DVD instead....

Tsui Hark's Formula - Wins Again

With 'Seven Sword's', Tsui yet again pits good versus bad, although I agree with the previous reviewier, the bad guys are excellent.

The film feels disjointed, and it is easy to lose your way. Also the ending leaves you waiting breathlessly for the next film, possibly a trilogy.

Great Martial Arts Fare....Swordfighting extreme.

very dissapointing

I would not reccomend this film I had high hopes - led by a great deal of advance publicity - it was very poorly filmed and the storyline was confusing and un followable as it jumped from time and scene to scene and charectors were not consistant . very poor - dissappointing film

Weird...

Very strange film, not at all what I was expecting, very loose plot, average fight scenes, turned off before the end.

Jet Li's twin warriors is much better.

Not to my taste, but don’t let that stop you from renting it.

In The Cut.

Tsui Harks' epic swordplay movie that has been edited down from four hours before release. Enjoyable, with some gory action, but it does somehow suffer from the editing process. The story does not always flow as it should. It would be interesting to see how the four hour version held together. Some nice performances and characters make this well worth the effort. The ending is left wide open for a sequel (or two) to follow. Not classic Tsui Hark, but proof that the man can still produce entertaining stuff.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Not quite sure !

This is either a masterpiece of cinematic brilliance or a very silly martial arts film , but likely outcome is it is bits of both . Some fight scenes at the end go on ages but great film , even may stretch to spectacular at times

Epic Chinese epic - but not for the faint-hearted...

'Seven Swords' is supposed to be based on a real Chinese epic story - though its resemblance to Kurosawa's 'Seven Samurai' is a little close for comfort (perhaps Kurosawa's comfort...). In any case, if you like old-school martial arts movies 'Seven Swords' is a well-made and occasionally outstanding crowd-pleaser and well worth the viewing. And I give nothing away if I say the ending is an oh-so-obvious gambit for Seven Swords II. Which on the strength of this first outing, I'd hope to be a certainty...

[Highly rated reviewer]

Very uneven

The good thing about it is the original combat scenes but the story is uneven, the camera work crazy and the way people are dressed or groomed is very strange to say the least. The ending is non existent, all in all entertaining but not crouching tiger.

seven swords

excellent story with great fighting action, highly recommended

Dissapointing

Really shocking film, dissapointed after having enjoyed crouching tiger, hidden dragon and house of flying daggers.