I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I finished to be less sorry for the time spent on seeing this film than I anticipated. If you want to see where 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' and some of the fight effects in the 'Matrix' series come from 'Swordsman 2' is certainly one of the original sources. It is not a bad film at all, there is good camera work all over, characters have structure and are different one from the other (even for an Asian film seen by European eyes) and all seems authentic - but I know little about the history of the area in the past times, unfortunately. It still looks naive and confusing sometimes, but compared to many of the Hollywood 'legends' recently, maybe this is not so bad either. 7/10 on my personal scale.

Beautiful kung fu and good story. This is one of a kind and belongs up there with "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" This is one movie I recommend. One of Jet Li`s best performances.

I'll probably get a bunch of death threats for making this comment, but frankly, I think this movie is overrated. Now don't get me wrong, I've seen much of Ching Siu Tung's work before. I'm not biased by his hyper-use of wires in his films (although I wished more of his action scenes would be like Blacksheep Affair). There are a lot of great visual ideas in this film, but they are shown in one scene, and that's it. I thought the snake-fu and the ninjas riding giant shurikens were cool, but underused. As with most Ching Siu Tung movies, the action scenes are too short. I thought the final showdown was especially disappointing: more verbal jousting then sword jousting. There was better flying swordplay in Butterfly and Sword. I won't comment on the acting and characters, as the version I watched was (horribly) dubbed in Hmong. However, overall this film is a disappointment.

If you only see one movie from Hong Kong, look no further. This one packed the best of all that kept HK's movie industry at the forefront of the action/ martial arts genre. The androgynous leading role also revived veteran actress Brigitte Lin's career, launching scores of other copycats casting her in such roles. She completely overshadows everyone else, despite the star-studded cast (incl Jet Li). The action sequences were stunning and kudos also for the meticulous costume-design and music score - a classic!