Charlie Young News

September 19, 2005
Toronto Film Fest: Tsui Hark?s ?Seven Swords? starring Donnie Yen
Tsui Hark's latest martial arts epic has some story problems, but there's still enough to like. The general storyline involves seven swordsmen in the early Qing Dynasty who try to protect a village from being slaughtered by the royal court that outlawed the practice of martial arts. If the film had just stuck to that simple story, it would have probably been a much better movie. Instead, there are two or three love triangles (as if one wasn't enough) and a bunch of extraneous subplots. Hark also goes overboard with the melodrama, resulting in a whole lot of cheese. More cheese than a couple American John Woo movies put together. More...