Director/action choreographer Yuen Woo-ping created a martial arts masterpiece way back in 1978 with his debut film Drunken Master, starring the legendary Jackie Chan. Together, the duo crafted a unique and hilarious style of fighting, as if Chan was actually inebriated while pulling off insanely acrobatic fighting moves. Woo-ping has consistently been reinventing the cinematic martial arts wheel ever since, with choreography in such instant classics as The Matrix, Kill Bill, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. He lends his directorial talents to the wuxia martial arts epic Blades of the Guardians, written by Tai-Lee Chan, Chao-Bin Su, Larry Yang, Baimei Yu, and based on a comic series created by Xianzhe Xu. The film features the return of a longtime star of the genre, Jet Li, with a small but tasty sequence that shows he’s still got it.
The story takes place near the end of the Sui Dynasty in the early 7th century and follows mercenary Dao Ma (Wu Jing) in the Taklamakan Desert. Ma is the second-most-wanted fugitive in the empire. Dao and his young companion Xiao Qi (Charles Ju) are on the run from Governor Chang Guiren (Jet Li). Dao’s mission is to take the most wanted fugitive, Zhi Shi Lang (Sun Yizhou), across the desert as a favor to tribal leader Chief Mo (Tony Leung Ka-fai), with the Chief’s fierce daughter Ayuya (Chen Lijun) in tow. The ragtag heroes face the villainous Di Ting (Nicholas Tse) and his group of mercenaries.
“Dao’s mission is to take the most wanted fugitive, Zhi Shi Lang, across the desert as a favor to tribal leader Chief Mo…”
The story gets a bit convoluted at times, which makes me wonder if the comic book fills in some of the blanks. Either way, this is all about the action. The fighting style closely resembles the most iconic of Wuxia films, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The fast, close-quarters choreography is filled with graceful leaps (with the help of wires) that remind one of the aforementioned classic. Woo-ping adds some really cool touches, such as blades on fire, a sandstorm, and, later, a battle in the snow. The filmmaker also includes a good mix of horseback action and bow-and-arrow shootouts to go along with the swordplay. The scale is enormous, making it a perfect fit for a large screen format such as IMAX.
Yuen Woo-ping doesn’t reinvent martial arts onscreen yet again with Blades of the Guardians, but he doesn’t need to. The grand scope of the wuxia action is riveting, something that fans of the genre must be starved for (at least in the United States). With the new subtitle in the credits: Wind Rises in the Desert, it looks like this will be the first film in a series.
For Blades of the Guardians to reach the legendary status of others that were mentioned, I would need to be just as invested in the storyline as I was in the action. Alas, that was not the case, but for most wuxia fans, that will be just fine. However, there are cool moments aside from the action, such as Yizhou’s interesting mask, which his character wears for much of the movie.
"…the grand scope of the wuxia action is riveting..."
