Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good concept, poorly executed.

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Seven Swords is an ambitious film. Let me first say that it manages to not be corny when it easily could have, has several interesting characters, and contains some of the best fight scenes I've ever seen. Because of this, I've rated it higher than I critically feel it deserves which would be around a seven. The films is strangely both too long for its own good, but also leaves most of its subplots and characters underdeveloped. And then its criminal that characters like Kualo are underutilized. However, Donnie Yen is great as always. Seven Swords has the makings for an amazing film, but is quite unpolished in its current state.

This is a great martial arts film that could probably qualify as just a good film in general.It has interesting characters, a decent plot line, some great cinematography, and excellent fight and battle scenes. For those who hate the wire-fu genre, don't worry. They sacrifice the acrobatics here for some real gritty action, lots of blood and guts flowing with every severed limb, gouged eyeball, and decapitated head.The characters of the "Seven Swords" are dominated by Lai Ming, Donnie Yen and Charlie Yeung. The other ones are there but have much less significant roles. The design and use of the swords they use are quite remarkable. I really liked the secret to Charlie's sword.The plot line with the Korean mistress was a bit of a misdirect but it did play an important part of the story and gave Donnie a chance to try speaking Korean.The ending was the one disappointing part. You can see the director/writing wanting to do a sequel so badly. But alas, it never came to pass (yet).8/10

This was my first taste of the director Tsui Hark's work and, considering the man's reputation, I can only assume I picked one of his duds as an introduction to his CV. The sublime, painstaking craftsmanship is plain to see in every frame – the film is astonishingly beautiful – but it's so very, very dull. And somehow, when you consider the fact you have a world-class director, a 'Seven Samurai' story, martial arts and violence, the suspicion arises that someone is guilty of pulling off a monumental blunder because, with ingredients like that in the pot, it's surely easier to produce a juicy delight than it is to make a tasteless stew like this.Apparently the film was originally intended to be four hours long – I don't even want to think about that – which is probably where the problem lies. Cut anything in half and it just isn't going to be the same, whether it's a film, a foot or a stupefied viewer's attention span. Characters seem to be arbitrarily introduced into the plot with no unique personalities and no back-story, making it nearly impossible to tell them apart. And if you can't identify the characters you're watching, you can't identify with them on any level, so you don't become involved in their plight. Only Honglei Sun, as the unfortunately named Firewind, a villain with a snigger like Dick Dastardly's sidekick Muttley, strikes any sparks.

The story must have been made by someone with a half brain. The intention of the story-writer was to make a hot-action movie full of oriental mystery new and new and new dramatic events turning up. Instead of being dramatical, the story changes to an empty and boring filler between poorly filmed action scenes. The dialogs are so poor, that they seemed to be worked out by the actors during the shots. The only thing I found positive is the conception of some side-kick characters. Unfortunately, the main villains as well as all the "Fantastic good guys" are flat, banal and unimpressive. If you like "Hero" or "Musa", be sure to miss this crap!Buy yourself a wooden sword and go practice into the woods instead of watching this! I am sure, you'll get better adventure.