re:mote voices

Title:Seven Swords (Chat Gim)
Cast: Leon Lai, Charlie Yeung, Donnie Yen, Liwu Dai, So-yeon Kim, Duncan Chow, Chia-Liang Liu, Yi Lu, Jingwu Ma, Jason Pai Piao, Honglei Sun, Michael Wong, Jingchu Zhang
Director: Hark Tsui

The Emperor has banned martial arts. Taking it to such an extreme that his soldiers will get money for each martial artist that they kill. A man arrives in a village of martial artists, having fled a massacre, warning that an army is on the way. This army will kill every last one of them, women and children all, claiming each head for the money. But the village don't trust this man; they know him as a government agent. Fortunately a couple of the younger villagers believe his story, help him escape, and join him on his journey to the holy mountain. The man was one of the seven sword masters and is looking to retake his sword and reassemble the masters to fight the enemy.

Obviously Seven Swords is just another version of the Seven Samurai, though given that the Chinese title is Chat Gim it is clear that the English title is not a direct translation. To a degree the style reflects the influence of Crouching Tiger/Flying Daggers. At least that is the theory, the reality is a little more dated feeling - Seven Swords doesn't have the same feeling of spectacle as the afore mentioned films. There is some striking scenery, but even that isn't especially exploited.

Unfortunately Seven Swords only had a short run on its recent UK release. The result was that I caught a late night showing, which is something I do quite often anyway. On this occasion, I was either particularly tired, or bored, since I kept having to stop myself from nodding off. Perhaps I would have gotten more from Seven Swords had I seen it at a different point. Instead I felt it was a bit lacklustre, getting more of a retro martial arts feel from it than I would have liked.

The best thing about the Seven Swords for me, was the evil army. They were made up to look fierce, elaborate armour, faces painted white, black tribal markings. All of which reminded me of something that artist Gary Erskine would draw. Particularly the girl, with her shaved Mohawk and manic energy, who was the coolest thing about the film - reminding of a character from Erskine's short run comic Warheads.