July 24th, 2005 seven swords

spent a couple precious hours of my life watching hunan tv on cable (that’s a china tv station to you, buddy). mostly because i was curious about the new tsui hark film, seven swords, which might or might not ressurect the wu xia (swordfighting) genre, lying dormant since the mid nineties.tsui can be pretty patchy at times. anything with van damme is a no-no for me, and as for once upon a time in china iv, its ridiculous slashing centipede sums up my feelings about the film. on the other hand, theflamboyance and imagination in films like swordsman ii show what can be created when it’s channelled in a good way.

backers in china obviously have a lot of money in seven swords, so it receved a huge publicity boost with a two hour stage-thing-spectacular-whatever on hunan tv. huge, i must say, with pyrotechnics and kungfu kids and dancers. not to mention most of the cast singing, most of their vocals thankfully being pre-recorded, and donnie yen choosing to play the piano instead, which he did surprisingly well.

the highlight for me was tsui hark at the finale singing the late james wong composed theme to his 1990 film swordsman. singing in a different key from the music, midway he apologised for ruining a song written by the revered songwriter.

seemingly a guy with a low tolerance for crap, i wonder what he really made of this big song and dance for his film. having already opened in china, it certainly would help get the numbers into cinemas (or conversely increase the demand for pirated dvds of the film). the hong kong film industry is still at a low point, and it would make sense if he was doing it more to help bring it out of the doldrums.