Word: tsui
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...section, now in its 20th year, championed prime work from Tsui Hark, the Hong Kong action master. The gaudily talented, impossibly prolific Takashi Miike got his start here and soon became a Madness regular. One of the highlights of TIFF 2007 is Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django, a shotgun-vs.-sword sagebrush pastiche in which all the actors speak phonetic English - except for Quentin Tarantino, in a succulent cameo role...
...Hong-lei) army mows through an innocent town with all the subtlety of a chain saw. Dressed like members of some death-metal rock band, complete with pale white makeup and black leather body armor, the bad guys decapitate and dismember with glee, wielding savage hooks and spears. Tsui's camera lingers on slashed throats and chopped hands twitching in the dirt. Even the good guys use massive medieval swords with serrated edges, weapons that seem better suited to Conan the Barbarian than elegant martial-arts masters. The brutality is underscored by the harsh desert scenery of Xinjiang. Tsui takes...
When Fire-wind sets his sights on Martial Village?so named because everyone there studies martial arts, a big no-no for the new Qing Emperor?the townspeople enlist the help of fighters from the local holy mountain, each gifted with a mystical blade: the Seven Swords. Tsui's purposefully gritty visual style makes it tough to tell the players without a scorecard, but Hong Kong movie veterans Lau Kar-leung, Leon Lai and Donnie Yen lead the way in thrashing Fire-wind's warriors, despite odds of about...
Seven Swords doesn't quite take a place among the classics. Hong Kong action movies once blossomed because talented directors like Tsui were paired with charismatic actors like Chow Yun-fat, who could elevate a genre picture with his mere presence. Sadly, the Hong Kong film industry has suffered a power drain in recent years, as no new performers have proved capable of filling the shoes of fleeing stars like Chow. Yen can knock out 100 bad guys without breaking into a sweat, but as the romantic lead in Swords, he makes the stolid Jet Li look like Cary Grant...
...performers may show less personality than the swords, but that doesn't hold the movie back too much?we're not here for character development. Tsui will be taking Swords to the Venice Film Festival, where it earned the prestigious opening spot. Don't expect the Mediterranean atmosphere to change him. Tsui can go to France and he can shoot in China, but he's still a Hong Kong filmmaker at heart...