Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14759 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-05-29
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Box set, PAL
• Original language: Mandarin Chinese
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 135 minutes

Synopsis
China in the 17th Century. A new law decrees all martial arts illegal, punishment of death. A group of soldiers travel the country seeking out those who would flout the law. A swordsman and his disciples decide to take the fight to the enemy, following a plea from a group of villagers. ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA director Tsui Hark directs this martial arts extravaganza.

Customer Reviews

Supreme
I thought i'd add a different perspective to the other review. I thought the film was really good. It's wonderfully shot, the action sequences are brilliant and there are so many little touches that make the film that much more enjoyable. The only problem i have is that there are seven main charecters and not only is it dificult to follow every individuals journey through the film, but the characters are not as well developed as a consequense. Other than that i thought is was superb, and it's not a film you can compare with crouching tiger because its on a totally different scale, with very different ideas about how martial arts should be displayed on the big screen.

Pretty good, for a film with a lot of wire work...
Before I go off on my rant, I liked this movie. It was good.

I gave it 4 stars because I thought it deserved better than 3...

This story is set in historic china, i think, in a time when practicing martial arts is against the law (possibly due to the horrid overuse of wire work in martial arts films...who knows). So what's happening is; there are a big band of nasties who are killing all the marital arts villages for money from the emporer. The gang all look pretty much the same apart from one member, I wasnt sure if it was a guy or a gal..., so they go around and slash people up real good, but this old guy steals all the name tags for the bodies. So, OH NO, they won't get the right money for them! They chase the old guy and he ends up in a little martial arts village, where three young'uns decide to help him out. The tomboy girl and the guy take hime to mount heaven where they all get super cool swords to help fight the bad guys! YAY!

The plot is a bit shakey, you don't see any of the seven swords for a while, and once you do the story seems to move a little too quickly. But hey it's a martial arts film, I know I don't watch them for the storylines! So I will let it slide...it was cut from 4 hours long!

Now, the real seller of this film to me was the fight scenes. Although some do have FAR to much terrible wire work (if it doesn't look real, i don't like it ie. crouching tiger hidden dragon). However a lot of the wire work is done quite subtely and is VERY good! The fight coreography is also exrtremely nice to watch especially the fight with the girly's sword. (I would have like to see more of that sword)

Visiually, this film is stunning (save some stupid wire work).

I love some of the swords in this. i won't spoil it but some are things you'd expect to see in an rpg or an anime, seeing things like this in live-action blew my mind.

Yeah, so it's a good film, worth watching (even if, like me, you didn't like crouching tiger, house of flying daggers and hero...) thats all folks!

Absolutely Amazing
This film is the best and most accurate account of the devestating times in China, 17th century. It captures the culture of the people at the time. It shows the sort of clothes they wore, food they ate, places they lived and obviously the weaponary and defences that they used. The film can not be compared to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon at all merely because crouching tiger is the worst film ever made, as if people could fly!!!

This movie does not exagerate anything at all but instead shows true Chinese folklore of the wonderous seven swords, not pathetic stories of flying ninjas who really can't fight. The martial arts is amazing too and is a good match to the matrix and any of Jackie Chan's movies.

A great buy and I deeply recomend it! (Do not be put off by the subtitles; after all having it in chinese helps capture further the culture and times of the Chinese 17th century. The film's tension, atmosphere and suspense would be ruined if it was in english just like the Passion of the Christ would be.)