toddly6666

SHADOWLESS SWORD is surprisingly a good wuxia/swordplay movie with great action, a decent story and good acting! I was expecting it to be like the awful SHINOBI or fair AZUMI, but I got just the opposite. It's basically about a female warrior who goes on a journey to find a prince of a falling empire and talk him into becoming the new king. During this journey, they are chased by the bad guys. It's sort of like THE TWO TOWERS and HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS in which they are always on the run, trying to reach a destination, and the prince is dealing with some Aragorn issues a la LORD OF THE RINGS. It's a simple story but done very well. One of the aspects that makes SHADOWLESS SWORD a good movie is that the two main male and female leads have good chemistry together as they flirt and bicker with each other along their journey in a normal male/female relationship way (as normal as it can get between two military officers), and thankfully not in the typical adolescent, unrealistic, overly dramatic, anime-style way depicted in other crappy Asian movies with romance (SHINOBI, CASSHERN, PERHAPS LOVE, THE PROMISE, etc.) which make the romance corny, phoney, and amateurishly written. Also, what makes this film different from the usual wuxia bunch is that the director throws some humor in the film. In the film, there are some low-class scum criminals that are all imitating and look like Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow from PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN - they all do a great impersonation too! There is also an assortment of interesting villains and other side characters in the movie. The main villain played by Hyeon-jun Shin (who was the protagonist in BICHENMOO) is quite an interesting actor. Throughout the movie, his subtle style of acting makes it hard to figure out if he is really bad or good - sort of a dark character a la Christian Bale style, like a vigilante, but can't really tell if his character is going to do something heroic or something totally demented.

The action in this movie is pretty sweet! Although it's quick cut, it's done in a tasteful way to appreciate the choreography. The scenes are long enough to build intensity as well. The two best scenes in the movie are a rooftop chase in the dark (sort of like a cross between the cops chasing Trinity at the beginning of MATRIX and the rooftop night chase from CROUTCHING TIGER) and an extremely original scene with the main two characters avoiding the baddies underwater in which the baddies (above ground) are throwing Chinese Stars into the water at such a rapid and massive attack, they probably killed all the fish in the lake. It is then followed by a underwater swordfighting scene which I haven't seen in martial arts movies before. So, there is some pretty cool choreography and some tricky wirework. There was definitely a lot of work put into the moves.

SHADOWLESS SWORD is the fourth best Korean wuxia/swordplay/martial arts movie that I've seen. The only other three that I have found to be the only good ones from Korean cinema are BICHENMOO, MUSA, and THE LEGEND OF EVIL LAKE. These four Korean movies have been the most balanced period-piece action movies that actually have a decent story, good acting, and are touching films.

I bought a single disc Region 3 NTSC version of SHADOWLESS SWORD. The Korean video store did not sell the 2-disc version. If actually I had known there was a 2-disc version, I would have bought that one instead. But I ended up with the 1-discer that only has a trailer and non-English subtitled commentary for the extras. The anamorphic video is very crisp. There were many night scenes and I didn't notice any pixilation. It looked pretty nice. The movie has a good balance of jumping to very dark claustrophic night scenes to very bright open-spaced day scenes. So it made me appreciate the video quality more since it wasn't just sticking to one color tone. The Korean DD 5.1 and DTS were awesome! There are many scenes with flying daggers, flying swords, flying spears, arrows swishing all over the place. It was a really nice mix. The English subtitles actually had a lot of grammar mistakes, but not enough to confuse the story or not know what's going on.

Pretty good movie! This director Young-jun Kim, who also did BICHENMOO, might be on his way in becoming the Yimou Zhang of Korea.

FILM: 8
DVD VIDEO: 8.5
DVD AUDIO: 8.5
EXTRAS: 2 (I got the single disc version with a trailer and non-English subtitled commentary)



Toddly6666's DVDs: http://www.intervocative.com/dvdcoll...spx/toddly6666

yeek

Great review toddly. This and Bichunmoo are probably my two favorite korean wuxia flicks.

logboy

my 2-discer is on the way... looking forwards to this since seeing the trailer, looks very nicely put together. never really plumped for 'shinobi' and 'duelist' in the end, just never felt completely sure they would be of interest... anyway.

bluntman72

I have been thinking about this one, might have to order it now.

what was so bad about shinobi, I was thinking about ordering it.

toddly6666

The bad thing about Shinobi is that it's a boring movie, it has unbelievable adolescent romance as in a bad anime, the story is awful, the acting is bad with characters overacting like 2-dimensional anime characters. There are a few good action scenes in the movie, but not worth buying to check them out. Basically, Shinobi is like a bad/boring anime movie.

logboy

mixed reviews. always worth checking around, and i suppose in many ways a film that splits opinions is far better than one which is all 'its great' or 'its cack' - no replacement for own judgement and opinion in the end though, and the best thing for that is trailers ...

http://www.shinobi-movie.com/index2.html

Josh Z

Nice review, Toddly. Good work.

greydt

Thanks for the review! I blind pre-ordered it with Yesasia, and I'm glad I won't have to cancel it.

However, my copy of Shinobi should be arriving in a day or two, so I guess I'll be batting 50/50...

Ralph Jenkins

Yeah, Shinobi suffers from two-dimensional characters and a dull story. Fans of the anime version (called Basilisk) will tell you it's because so much was condensed into two hours, but I know you can tell a compelling story and have well-developed characters within the confines of a two-hour feature. This movie's saving grace for me was Yukie Nakama, whom I didn't mind looking at for two hours.

I'm looking forward to watching Shadowless Sword. Unfortunately, my order won't ship until the end of the month because of another preorder.

litza

Thanks for the review. I would have skipped right by this movie (too many mediocre period swordplay films for my tastes recently), but after reading your comments, I'm going to pick it up.

RichC2

By no means a great movie, but's a beautifully shot and damn entertaining one. I recommend it.

bluntman72

yeah one of the reasons I wanted shinobi was how attractive the main actress is, but I guess I will go with Shadowless Sword instead

toddly6666

The main reason I bought Shinobi was for the main actress too. But as you watch Shinobi, all she does is pose her profile all throughout the movie. It's cute in the first 10 minutes, but it soon gets boring and annoying. She is basically a Japanese Zoolander!

JHosk

I just watched this back to back with Fearless (the new Jet Li flick). It was OK but *definitely* not worth the $28 asking price at most korean retailers. The story was pretty decent, and some of the scenery and cinematography were fantastic. My only complaint was that I found the fight scenes to be really flat. Maybe this was compouded by the fact that I had just fatched Fearless right before, but the fight choreography was basically people just spinning and flying around. I usally am a fan of wuxia, but the fighting in this flick just seemed really un-inspired.

flixtime

Just watched it and found it to be yet another entry in the disappointment category for recent swordplay films. The film takes place in the tenth century and yet there is absolutely no sense of that time or place. Everything felt more comic book and it seemed like all the characters were just playing dress up. While there is the expected amount of respectable wuxia, after that there is little to recommend (nothing really to hate either but the whole affair is just rather lifeless, struggling at mediocrity, and even a little dull when the wuxia wasn't going on). The story is tired and run-of-the-mill (one of the later scenes is totally inspired (or ripped off from) by a scene in "Braveheart") and the film has zero emotional weight until maybe the last quarter. The performances were acceptable at best and there was no chemistry between the two protagonists (except towards the end). I suppose from the trailer I thought I'd see something a little more epic and dramatic. I'd only recommend it - and only as a curiousity - to big fans of the genre, everyone else can let it slide by. In no way doesn't it come close to transcending beyond the genre as did films like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Hero", etc. Personally as a fan of the genre, I did derive reasonable entertainment value out of it, but rating it out I'd still call it only a 5/10 at best and probably better said at 4/10. When compared to recent contemporaries, I preferred "The Promise", "Shinobi", and "Ashura-jo no Hitomi" (and the highest score I'd give the best of them wouldn't be much better than a 6/10). As far as replay, "Shadowless Sword" is way down the list when compared to others in the genre. And as toddly6666 commented I too found the subs less than ideal. I don't speak Korean so maybe the translation was accurate but I found curious that in one point (if I'm remembering correctly) they actually offer as translation the word "dorks". Perhaps the language was supposed to convey something like that but it struck me as far too modern for the story...and way too slang (as if the translation was done by an adolescent who was trying to make it hip).

Anyway, a little off-topic if I may, after my little hissy fit over "The Duelist" a couple months back, I took a little break from Korean cinema. Being now removed from its pedestal, I am revisiting it and as compared to "Shadowless Sword", I did very much enjoy "Running Wild" (note: the English subs are rather poor however, and "yes" I realize we are lucky to have gotten subs on this at all), and an even more pleasant surprise was "Bystanders" aka "Diary of June". It might be blasphemous to say it, but in many ways I preferred it over "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" (which I thought suffered some by having its great style completely overpower its story and emotional resonance). "Running Wild", despite the lousy subs, was a nice watch as well, nothing new under the sun or anything but still an enjoyable night's viewing. You can see the influence of recent Hong Kong crime films as well as Hollywood stuff like "Lethal Weapon" and "The Untouchables". The film's strengths are plentiful including some terrific performances (though the acting gets a little more melodramatic towards the end) from the primary actors. I thought there was really nice on-screen chemistry among the cast. And the film is pretty brutal as South Korean cinema is often good at doing. I think that fans of the cop/crime/gangster genre would find it rewarding and satisfying, and a nice addition to their collections. To close, though I'd have to refresh my memory, I'd say that "Bystanders" aka "Diary of June" would make my Top 10 of Korean films for 2005. And "Running Wild" is highly likely to contend for a later spot on my Top 10 of 2006 (I wish the subs weren't so distracting however). I've still got to get to "Princess Aurora", "Holiday", "Art of Fighting", and "Blue Swallow".