The Sword of Swords (1968) User Reviews (6)

Jimmy Wang Yu is tortured...again

[raforehand · 8/10 · 18 January 2021]

There's an odd propensity to cripple/majorly injure Jimmy Wang Yu in many of his films, and this is no exception.

On the surface this is begins as a fairly standard swordplay/wu xia -esque film. A powerful weapon owned by a master of a martial arts school, a ambitious student who wants that ultimate weapon for himself, and a student without ambition but a good, moral man who just happens to be the best in the school. From there the story proceeds.

While the action isn't the best, considering the time, and the story isn't quite as endearing as The One Armed Swordsman or the One Armed Boxer (both also with Jimmy Wang Yu), this is still a very interesting story, and the journey and tragedy of Ling Tseng-hsiao makes for exceptional viewing.

Love all these movies, but a bit annoyed by this one.

[petep · 6/10 · 5 September 2011]

I can't help but wonder how this movie came about. Yu Wang was huge in the late 60s and had just done The One-Armed Swordsman. Some executive might have said "Hey we had this huge hit where Yu Wang was disabled. Let's think of another major injury he has to overcome and it'll be a hit!" They settled on blindness, but Chang Cheh thought they were idiots, so they got someone else to direct it. I doubt this really happened, but blindness isn't the only obstacle for Yu Wang in this movie.

Well, naturally there are dozens of armed men for him to cut down. But what bothered me most here was there are so so many dumb and stubborn characters. The melodrama factor is really high too. But, I watch these for the action, and it was pretty good. The main villain, Feng Tien, admits pretty early that he's not as good as Yu Wang, but they still get a few fights out of the pair because of the villain's plans. Great here as a villain, especially what he pulls on Yu Wang near the end, oh my god.

Poor Wang Yu

[Leofwine_draca · 7/10 · 23 August 2017]

THE SWORD OF SWORDS is one of the early Shaw Brothers movies to capitalise on the new-found stardom of Jimmy Wang Yu, who had achieved success with his turn in Chang Cheh's ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN. Cheh found this film's story silly, apparently, so somebody else directed, but the good news is that the quality remains very good despite the lack of the great man's presence.

Wang Yu plays a youthful martial arts student whose dying master owns the titular weapon, which has incredible magic powers. Unfortunately, elder student Tien Feng covets the weapon and is happy to commit murder to get his hands on it. The story that follows goes on a little too long, but it's filled with action that gets better and better - and bloodier and bloodier - as it goes on. Feng makes for a truly worthwhile foe, as he always did, and Wang Yu's heroism is never in doubt. The film also has some extraordinary nihilistic moments, like the attack on Wang Yu that ends in disaster; a more visceral moment you couldn't imagine. Things culminate in a lavish, large-scale climax that doesn't disappoint.

top tier sword play

[faberino-13823 · 10/10 · 21 November 2019]

This wang yu classic has some of the best kung fu/swordplay ever, highly recommended for the action bits and fights. its also really well directed and photographed, looks great. and of course any movie that stars wang yu and tien feng is going to feature great performances and this one surely does. not sure what the other reviewers on here are going on about because this is easily one of the best shaw brother productions ever.

a drawn-out clang fest - not recommended

[Drealmer · 4/10 · 1 October 2018]

This was a doozy. It started out alright, but then it got boring, and then it got lame, and then it just kept going, and then it finally ended.

There is pretty much ZERO martial arts in this movie and pretty much no choreography. There's just a lot of motion back and forth and swooshing and lots of clanging of swords. Sure they had to have a choreographer and it's not completely void of some stunt skill, but it's the bottom of the barrel. Everyone in the movie has the exact same sword style too (well we see 1 other sword type briefly from 1 character, but 500000 other swords all the same style.)

The story actually had some potential, but it's all lost on the bad directing (it could have been a good drama if they had less pointless clanging and a better director.) There was 1 aspect that came across VERY well and it's a shame it got lost in a crappy movie. Because it was so good, I'm going to explain it all here. Spoilers ahead:

The main character's wife gets kidnapped by the baddies trying to draw him to them, he doesn't bite (they just want his magic sword with which they can conquer the kingdoms) - so they beat her up and send her back to him hoping to make him pissed to come at them. When they beat her up they very much are like 'we could rape you, but we're not going to' and when she gets back to him she is very worried he won't accept her because he will think she's been raped. He believes that she wasn't when she says she wasn't, but then she's like 'but can you still take me back? everyone else will think I was raped and will talk behind your back' and he's like "I don't care, I'm sticking with you, I love you."

Later they get separated for a while, and in the meantime he loses his vision and has to learn to fight by sound. Finally he goes to kill the baddies who have again kidnapped his wife and the older woman she was staying with (and her family.) He does alright fighting the baddies a bit but then they begin using the old woman's family as body shields and the main character ends up killing off the entire family unknowingly as he's fighting the baddies. Then he kills the old woman in the same way. The wife is like "they're having you kill the family, you just killed granny!" Pretty tragic. Then when he finally gets all the baddies killed and kills the main baddie his wife is still there and he's just wracked with guilt and will live the rest of his life blind and she says something like "don't worry, I'll be with you always."

The story kills the movie

[Angel_Peter · 2/10 · 5 January 2019]

Start of the movie is okay but it becomes apparent it is not just a great sword from the movies title but a super sword. So if this is not your style then go for next movie.

Then we come to the classical evil first student want possession of the super sword. Lets face it we do usually not watch martial arts movies for the acting. In this movie they try to make a story heavy revenge movie that do require acting and it fails miserably. The movie it just seem to drag on and on with very little martial arts and us waiting for the final confrontation.

With half an hour left there comes a new plot twist that some may find amazing. I just thought oh my god have they been taking too many drugs? At this time I already felt like the movie had been on for more than 2 hours and did not really care about the end anymore. The end did in my opinion not do anything to improve my view of the movie though.

I have enjoyed most of the earlier Shaw Brothers martial arts movies. This one I would recommend skipping and take something else instead.