14 Blades

[Drunk Monk]

Another Donnie Yen/Zhao Wei flick. This one is opulent wuxia, great sets, great costumes, great real and CGi landscapes. Cameos from Sammo Hung and my new friend, Chan Koon Tai. Donnie is a cold-blooded assassin, trained from birth, who carries around a box like Legendary Weapons of Kung Fu. This box is a mechanized box o' blades: swords, daggers, darts with lines, spring-loaded quarrels. Zhao Wei is another member of the crazy-bugged-out-eyes club - she looks like an anime heroine with those huge eyes - and there are plenty of scenes where she demonstrates her uncanny ability to tear up those peepers with complete control of her ducts to deliver maximum impact. What can I say? I've been crushing on Zhao Wei since she was the goalie in Shaolin Soccer. There's another actor who I have to look up that wields double scimitars that attached together at the pommels for an S-shaped boomerang. He rocks a Capt. Jack Sparrow bandana with cornrows and dreadlocks. And there's a great villainess, who I also must look up, who has metal coiled into her braids like medusa and wields this weird bladed chain whip weapon. She does this weird hypno-trick when she fights where she slips out of her clothes, leaving her opponents to stab empty floating robes - it's a nice CGI effect, although not titilating in the way one might anticipate. There are plenty other colorful swordsmen too, plenty more to get minced up by Donnie and his box of blades. Which brings me to the main point here. Sword fights, sword fights, sword fights. Lots of 'em. This film serves them up hot and keeps them coming. Fun ones too, with lots of flying about, crazy cuts, and chopping through thick wood support columns. Very satisfying in the sword fight dept.

A potential DOOM flick, if I can find a copy with subtitles.