Forgive me if I get things wrong or confused, but the film opens by throwing half a dozen different names at you including characters and places. The story seems to be that a country fell to bad people, and a new country was formed. Those of the old country, Balhae, however, decided that they didn’t want to be a part of this new country of Dongranguk, because they breed violence and hatred. Unfortunately for the people of Balhae, their King and all the succeeding princes are being assassinated one by one by the Killer Blade Army of Dongranguk, led by the funkily named Gunhwapyeong.
What we basically have here is a Korean version of Wuxia-style action in a Crouching TIger, Hidden Dragon mould. There is one prince remaining, one that has been exiled and lives as an outcast buying and selling dodgy goods. He’s very much a wheeler dealer of sorts, and when he realises he’s the only prince left to take the throne, he tries to scarper. The news is provided by an “excellent fighter” who is sent on a mission to bring the exiled prince back to the people of Balhae so they can be led to fight the Killer Blade Army of Dongranguk and unite the country as one.
The film starts off interestingly enough with a full on action fest, offering sword fighting and martial arts, with a touch of gore to round things off. The plot is confusing at times, particularly when you try to keep up with the names, as I’m sure you can’t remember the names of the people or places I’ve already mentioned in this review.
It reaches a lull, however, early on in the film as they make their way to the Bahae folk in boring, sentimental fashion offering melodrama that is too rigid to be convincing and too dry to be interesting.
The action is a mixture of the good and the bad, with the wire work at times being laughable in the sense that finding out your teeth are actually made of plasticine is laughable. It’s an ironic laugh, and one that does make you laugh out of humour. It’s a bad laugh. Still when it’s good, it’s not too shabby and does entertain for a while. It is in the end all a bit hum drum, with the wuxia action being stretched to the maxiumum. One example of this is the flying through the air is over done, as is the rather extravagant body exploding inrto a million little pieces.
It’s not that Shadowless Sword is a bad film, on the contrary it’s not bad, but that’s where it stays; in average territory. The action is ordinary at best, the acting is a little cheesy, and the music doesn’t help, the romance between the two main characters is a little more than unbelievable and at close to two hours long the film is rather lengthy too.
If there was any reason to recommend Shadowless Sword it might be that it’s a modestly interesting action film. If there was any reason not recommend it, I would have to write a short list of the flaws the film has from it’s poor characters to it’s dull storyline. The bad outweighs the good in this case.
You could do worse than renting out Shadowless Sword, especially since there’s a lack of Wuxia films. I mean I thought House of Flying Daggers was a bad film, but this is worse. There isn’t a lot out there for fans of Wuxia, so as it stands this is better than nothing. Still, it’s not particularly great.
Verdict: Wuxia fans would be disappointed, film buffs in general look elsewhere.