This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Expected more

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

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.

I am a big fan of Hong Kong films. I love high-flying crazy flying swordsman movies. I am a fan of Jet Li. I am a fan of Ching Siu-Tung. But this movie is not that good! Everying is filmed in the dark, with quick blurry camera movements to cover up the use of wires. The fights are just badly filmed, and since thats all this movie has going for it... Well, okay, the final 15 minutes of battle is pretty good. But that is replayed in the beginning of the superior sequel THE EAST IS RED. Go see that one instead. Or see A CHINESE GHOST STORY or MOON WARRIORS or TAI CHI MASTER or even KUNG FU CULT MASTER. All much better movies than this.

You know it's going to be a wild ride when bodies are being chopped in half five seconds into the film. The manic pace of this film never lets up, the assault of flashing swords, flying bodies, snakes, needles, throwing stars, whips, needles and kitchen sinks (all right, not really, but I think you get my point) is almost too much to absorb all in one sitting. But what really makes the film is the striking performance by Brigitte Lin as the villain. She's fast becoming my favourite HK actress, and her wicked performance here is a big reason why. Her character is so captivating that the next "Swordsman" film was apparently centered around her character. The only letdown is that for the bulk of the film, she's dubbed (with a male voice), but since that's integral to the plot, I'll let it slide. For fans of HK fantasy/action films, this is very much worth your while.

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!