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The Butcher, the Chef, and the Swordsman Photos

Masanobu Andô as The Chef in "The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman."

Ashton Xu as The Swordsman in "The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman."

Liu Xiaoye as The Butcher in "The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman."

A scene from "The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman."

(L-R) You Benchang and Ashton Xu in "The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman."

Kitty Zhang as Madam Mei in "The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman."

Wuershan on the set of "The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman."

The Butcher, the Chef, and the Swordsman (2010)

View All Photos (17)

Movie Info

A group of misfits gets involved with a kitchen cleaver made from five of the greatest swords.

Rating:

PG-13 (Sequences of Stylized Violence|Partial Nudity|Brief Crude Humor|Some Bloody Images)
Genre:

comedy, sports and fitness, action
Original Language:

Chinese
Director:

Wuershan
Writer:

Wuershan, Zhang Jiajia, Ma Luoshan, Tang Que
Release Date (Streaming):

Apr 1, 2013
Runtime:

1h 35m
Production Co:

Fox International Productions

Cast & Crew

Masanobu Andô

Kitty Zhang Yuqi

You Benchang

Liu Xiaoye

Ashton Xu

Wuershan
Director

Show all Cast & Crew

Critic Reviews for The Butcher, the Chef, and the Swordsman

All Critics (13) | Top Critics (7) | Fresh (6) | Rotten (7)

Wuershang is too busy mixing up a slurry of postmodern techniques, abortive fight scenes, and noisy set pieces to spend any time on fundamentals.

March 20, 2011 | Rating: 1.5/4 | Full Review…

Jesse Cataldo
Slant Magazine
About the only thing this cinematic whirligig skimps on is coherence, both narrative and aesthetic.

March 18, 2011 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review…

James Adams
Globe and Mail
In his embrace of American sensibilities, Wuershan seems to have mastered a Hollywood specialty: empty calories served loud, flashy and fast.

March 18, 2011 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Andy Webster
New York Times
And the prize for the most incomprehensible movie of the millennium goes to the Chinese martial-arts comedy "The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman."

March 18, 2011 | Full Review…

V.A. Musetto
New York Post
Wuershan's heavy hand, never letting up for a moment to allow any air or life to enter the film, cuts off the film's energy even as it rattles relentlessly on.

March 17, 2011 | Rating: 2/5 | Full Review…

Mark Olsen
Los Angeles Times
If it's diminished by the director's feverish urge to over-achieve, this movie is clearly the kind of irreverent, multi-platform, cross-genre, otherworldly stuff Hollywood wants from China: fast, furious, big, bold and brassy.

March 17, 2011 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Greg Quill
Toronto Star
The film is chaotic, but it's also a tremendous amount of fun for those able to simply abandon their expectations.

September 4, 2020 | Rating: 3.0/4.0 | Full Review…

Richard Propes
TheIndependentCritic.com
This film breaks almost every filmic rule regarding amount of content, pacing and editing speed, but somehow the combination flies through the air as swiftly and smoothly as the magical cleaver, slicing all that oppose it.

May 15, 2018 | Full Review…

Shelagh Rowan-Legg
That Shelf
It is hard to say how much influence (Doug) Liman had over the finished product, but the already jittery directorial eye of Wuershan may have been better served by a collaborator who favours a less-is-more approach.

March 23, 2011 | Full Review…

Simon Foster
Digital Retribution
This coarse, complicated period comedy is unlikely to catch on with mainstream U.S. audiences, while fans of contemporary Chinese movies will compare it-mostly unfavorably-to Stephen Chow's equally broad but more graceful action comedies.

March 18, 2011 | Full Review…

Maitland McDonagh
Film Journal International
If [it] sounds juvenile, well, okay, maybe it is. But who cares, when it's all so damn much fun?

March 17, 2011 | Full Review…

Andy Klein
Brand X
Likeable crazy, combined with visual stylistics and driven by a sense of humour, this madcap Chinese martial arts frolic has everything

March 12, 2011 | Full Review…

Andrew L. Urban
Urban Cinefile

View All Critic Reviews (13)

Audience Reviews for The Butcher, the Chef, and the Swordsman

Nov 08, 2011

Quite strange tale of revenge, honour and greed follows a group of misfits that gets involved with a kitchen cleaver made from the top five swords of the martial arts world in this weird and brash action comedy. You can tell director Wuershan makes ads featuring lots of slow motion, fast edits, bellowing fabric and soaring arias. The film is full of gimmicks. This includes, black and white sections with red highlights à la <i>Sin City</i>, animations, video game sequences, Taiwanese 3D news renderings and cartoons. The few sequences that look interesting enough are those dealing with food.

Dean M Super Reviewer