Blades of Glory
Yuen Woo-ping’s masterstroke: getting Wu Jing and Jet Li in the same scene. Twice!
Blades of the Guardians
Director: Yuen Woo-ping • Writers: Larry Yang, Yu Baimei, Chan Tai-lee, Su Chaobin, based on the comic by Xu Xianzhe
Starring: Wu Jing, Nicholas Tse Ting-Fung, Yu Shi, Chen Lijun, Sun Yizhou, Ci Sha, Max Zhang, Tony Leung, Jet Li
China • 2hrs 6mins
Opens Hong Kong February 17 • IIB
Grade: B
Blades of the Guardians | 鏢人：風起大漠 starts just like so many of these epic period adventures about warring factions, and heroes of the people fighting corruption with mad martial arts skills. We get the requisite voice over and scroll to read, telling us how the Sui rulers are fighting with each other and with various groups, all trying to protect their interests on the crucial Silk Road. A former swordsman turned bounty hunter and the second most wanted fugitive in the land, Dao Ma (Wu Jing), is hired to escort the most wanted man in the land, Flower Rebellion leader Zhi Shilang (Sun Yizhou), to the old capital at Chang’an. Zhi wants to make the world a better place and help the masses. Needless to say, they encounter various chieftans, governors and proto-industrialists who want to stop them and which leads to swordplay. Duh.
The selling poinf for Guardians is the pan-generational talent (and talent levels) invovled on screen. Legendary stunt co-ordinator/director Yuen Woo-ping directs his 1980s/’90s boo Jet Li Lianjie and current action star Wu, and helps in-betweener Nicholas Tse Ting-fung and a clutch of up-and-comers look the part in a sprawling, by the numbers desert-bound epic. As usual it’s loaded with way too many characters and story threads that nonetheless conspire to hit all the expected beats that propel the action from fight scene to fight scene. That’s what we’re here for and for the most part Guardians delivers, even if it never quite hits the highs of classic Yuen work – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Fearless, The Matrix – or find the gravitas of Once Upon a Time in China where Yuen did stunts (close enough). As holiday offerings go it’s suitably diverting, and anyone jonesing for another sand storm chase à la Fury Road, you’re welcome.
The Gobi getting its moment
For reasons we find out much later in the story, Dao Ma is a former Left Valiant Cavalry soldier who travels around collecting bounties the nice way: he tells his targets he’ll forget they ever crossed paths if they pay double the offered reward. He’s a good guy, you see, who only works for governments that work for the people. He’s also protector to his nephew, Xiao Qi (Ju Qianlang), in the wake of his sister’s death, so he has extra incentive to stay safe. After a run-in with a rotten local official, Dao travels to Mojia, a desert outpost benevolently administered by Old Mo (Tony Leung Ka-fai), with some help from his archer daughter Ayuya (fairly awesome Chen Lijun, replacing Nashi after a university admission clusterfuck). Mo promptly tells him he’ll forgive any debts if Dao escorts Zhi to Chang’an, a dangerous proposition with the Imperial court in chaos, to which Dao says, “What do I care about rebellions?”
Well he does, so he agrees and finds himself allied with Ayuya, who’s along for the ride, and another bounty hunter, Shu (Yu Shi, Creation of the Gods) when Zhi commandeers his stagecoach. The motley (always motley) crew encounter Dao’s old frenemy with a score to settle (there’s always a score to settle), Di Ting (Tse) and worse, a self-proclaimed desert Khan and Ayuya’s scumbag former fiancé He Yixuan (an almost sneering Ci Sha, The Shadow’s Edge). He’s a power-mad would-be despot in league with Sui power broker Pei Shiju (Zhang Yi, Full River Red) and his son Pei Xingyan (Liu Yaowen). You know this movie.
As with so many wuxia throwbacks like it, Blades of the Guardians is ever so subversive, with the town of Mojia standing as an obvious avatar for the “real” China, not that corrupt Chang’an shit, with Old Mo its moral, ethical and social lodestar. An approving eye is cast at the idea of a strong, honest central government and there’s a tension between individualism and collectivity, but ultimately everyone does what’s right and the wicked are punished.
But like I said no one is really here for deep and meaningful storytelling with intense emotional impact and thought-provoking deconstructions of current issues. We’re here to see Wu do his thing and get a glimpse of the long absent Li, last seen in Disney’s live action Mulan, in a first act supporting role. And there’s plenty of swordplay and wirework, enough to please diehards. A highlight is the three-way throwdown that erupts when Dao Ma comes to the defence of a retired swordsman trying to keep a low profile as innkeeper (another heavy hitter, Zhang Jin) and the corrupt governor Chang Guiren (Li) who wants his hotel for unpaid taxes. It’s really the film’s centrepiece and trumps even DOP Tony Cheung Tung-leung’s (Hidden Strike) sandstorm fight and his lush widescreen images. It’s good to see Li again, even in slightly slower motion. I’ll take it over The Expendables.