Very Vincible
Luo Yiwei’s spin on Louis Cha’s classic will have you pining for the days of VCD.
Invincible Swordsman
Director: Luo Yiwei • Writer: Wong Jing, based on the novel by Louis Cha
Starring: Kitty Zhang, Tim Huang, Terence Yin, Xuan Lu, Yun Qianqian, Zhang Lu, Sammo Hung
China • 1hr 43mins
Opens Hong Kong Jan 23 • IIB
Grade: C-
Depending on your source, first-time, sophomore, or third-time writer and director Luo Yiwei finds himself stepping into some ginormous shoes with the Wong Jing-penned Invincible Swordsman | 笑傲江湖, because yeah. You know this one. Invincible Swordsman is basically a remake of The Swordsman II, the middle chapter of legendary wuxia novelist Louis Cha/Jin Yong’s The Smiling, Proud Wanderer as adapted by A Chinese Ghost Story director Ching Siu-tung in The Swordsman, The Swordsman II and The East is Red in the 1990s. That means stars Kitty Zhang Yuqi and Tim Huang Xiyan are playing characters most recently – and memorably – portrayed on screen by two GOATs, Brigitte Lin (!) and Jet Li (!!). No pressure, dude.
Whatever the case, Luo is clearly a hired, pedestrian gun, having previously, maybe, helmed not-at-all high profile VFX-heavy martial actioner Swords Drawn (for video?) and possibly Hermit’s Sword (are you sensing a pattern?), and written a television series. Here he has the unenviable task of making sense of jiggle master and screenwriter Wong Jing’s unwieldy and scattershot script, and distracting us from the overdubbing we all thought had been relegated to the dust bin of film history. In fairness, the subtitles that come up at what appears to be Mach 6 are so illegible it doesn’t really matter what they say. By about 12 minutes in you’ll be making up your own story no matter what language you’re watching in, piecing together bits from the book or the earlier film, and just letting shit happen. You’ll also wonder if you turned off the kitchen light and bought cat litter. That’s how little anything truly worth looking at is up on screen.
Not Brigitte Lin
All you really need to know about Invincible Swordsman is… go watch The Swordsman II. Failing that, you got your Dongfang Bubai, better known as Invincible East (Stephen Chow discovery back in the day, Zhang), the self-castrated leader of the Demonic Sect, who did so to better understand the Sunflower Manual. East – can we call them East? – has archnemesis Ren Woxing (Terence Yin Chi-wai), the usurped leader of the Sun Moon Holy Cult, in a dungeon… somewhere, and his daughter Ren Yingying (Xuan Lu), AKA the Holy Maiden or something, ropes Linghu Chong (Huang, Creation of the Gods) into helping her spring him. Chong is a master of the Nine Swords of Dugu who just wants to be a sommelier and be free of the Jianghu world, but everytime he thinks he’s out they pull him back in. He finally shows some kind of emotion when East wipes out his Huashan Sect on the way to eliminating the five clans (?) even after they had sex. Awkward! Especially when little sister Lan Fenghuang (Cai Xiangyu) clearly has the hots for him, I think, who is also upset when Huashan is murdered. Woxing wants his cult back and some revenge on traitors, and everybody’s mad at each other and given a few minutes to trade barbs about being demons or drunk and letting loose a maniacal laugh, they fight. Or something.
Whatever themes or pollitical allegories may have existed in Cha’s prose or Ching’s films are long gone, and it’s clear Yue and Wong are more interested in a creatiing a mildly diverting entertainment than anything else. In itself there’s nothing objectionable in that, but Invincible Swordsman feels oddly out of step with film culture. It’s not a throwback; it’s not an homage. It’s just kind of dated in its production, with anti-charming pseudo-wirework, speed ramping and so much OTT martial action it’s way too easy to disengage from each sequence, and from the whole film. And to spout some bullshit like “too much OTT martial action” in reference to a moive like this comes with misdemeanour charges last I heard. Yue goes through the motions rather than inject an old form with new language or style, and that’s a shame given new tech and a new world order to play with. Zhang is giving off big Lin energy with her deadly needles, and in her “sexy” scenes with Huang the duo recalls Lin and Leslie Cheung in The Bride with White Hair and that does both of them absolutely zero favours. They have all the chemistry of dental hygienists that met on Bumble. Invincible Swordsman’s crime is being shamefully unremarkable; neither good enough to make you forget the greats nor bad enough to evoke your own maniacal laughter. I’ve already forgotten it.