Genre: Drama

It’s a languid, leisurely swordplay film that advances at a glacial pace and is defiant in doing so. Yet that is, along with the crisp cinematography, its greatest strength.

Eschewing, for the most part, extensive wirework and CGI enhancement, ‘The Swordsman’ delivers clean, crisp, albeit brutal swordfight action.

From the opening frames to the denouement, this is a production that sucks you into its strange universe, style dripping out of every shot.

A somewhat straightforward, and at times melodramatic, narrative is given heft by the committed cast, stunning cinematography and set design, and fantastic swordplay action.

The wonderfully choreographed, filmed and performed kung fu from a large and talented cast is the reason to watch this movie and for this it is highly recommended.

‘The Tai Chi Master’ has all the components you expect – an impressive budget, a handful of beautiful actresses, and plenty of action – but never quite convinces.

While the episodic narrative fails to engage, the short vignettes of the Dai culture and the stunning cinematography make ‘The Taste of Rice Flower’ a more bearable experience.

Moving from the Shaw Brothers studio to the ones housed at Golden Harvest, Lo Wei and Jimmy Wang Yu bring their considerable talents to this shot in Thailand potboiler that allows Yu to showcase his action talent.

While it hasn’t aged well in comparison to ‘Come Drink With Me’ and even some of Chang Cheh’s early work, it still proves to be a mildly diverting Shaw Brothers’ swordplay film.

It hits all the disaster movies tropes and delivers some spectacular sequences of destruction, mayhem and general disaster insanity.

A four-star movie that, due to its heavy-handed closing shots, loses half a star; the same idea was used with much more sophistication at the end of ‘Anonymous Heroes’.

Strong performances, intelligently filmed action and an all round aura of quality mean that this comfortably hits a four star rating.