Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

ExpendableMan I'd heard many good things about this movie and having enjoyed much of Tsui Hark's work before, was looking forward to a masterpiece, especially seeing as it's a remake of the Shaw Brother's Classic, One Armed Swordsman, but ultimately I was quite disappointed. Maybe I am being overly harsh as this is a film that really serves as a set piece for violent sword fighting spectacles and here it certainly delivers. On, the sword foundry worker turned one armed, whirling dervish of death cuts a striking figure as he slices his way through the bandits that ruined his life and there is plenty for action fans to sink their teeth into here. The initial ambush where On loses his arm is riveting, as bandits seemingly fly out the woodwork and numerous hidden bear traps snap shut on limbs and the later fight sequences such as On defending his adopted home or the bandit assault on the sword foundry are packed to the rafters with flashing blades and high body-counts, blood spattering everywhere.However, what lets it all down is the narrative component and the overall impression I got was that Tsui Hark came up with the idea for several sword fighting showpieces, then tacked the storyline on as an afterthought. We get no real introductions to the characters whatsoever and narrative strands seem to be dropped in and out with little thought. What makes this worse is that the film spends way too much time focusing on the female narrator, a girl in love with both On and his co-worker Iron Head. Not only is her story of searching for her true love nowhere near as entertaining as On's quest for revenge, but she seems to spend the entire film either getting in the way or screaming and throwing tantrums. Throw in some flimsy philosophical musings (she's constantly going on about the war in her heart) and she becomes a very unsympathetic character, each time her voice over crops up you can't help but looking at the running time and hoping she finishes soon so we can get back to more about sword fighting and revenge.It's not a bad film, but far below the standard that I had hoped for. If they'd paid as much attention to the storyline as the action and got rid of the ridiculously irritating female narrator, it could have been so much better.

dibach70 This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It's supposed to be a remake or update of "The One-armed Swordsman", by Chang Cheh. The ham-fisted direction and crappy fight choreography mean that the fight scenes aren't even worth watching. The script tries desperately hard to seem serious, but is full of cliches like, "And I knew then that nothing would ever be the same again..." or "If only I'd known what a heavy price I would have to pay." Ugh! And who is that girl who plays Sing? Someone find her and have her eliminated!! She's awful. If you like Chinese martial arts movies, you'd be better off with Lau Gar Leung. This stinks.

atomic_gymnaste The greatest Wu Xia Pian I've ever seen in my life (and god knows I've seen a lot). The final action sequence, including Hung Yan-Yan, is now a legend in Kung-fu movies, just like the duel between Jet Li and Donnie Yen in Once Upon A Time in China 2... Tsui Hark's direction is fabulous despite an obvious lack of money. And Chiu Man-Cheuk is a tremendous actor/kung-fu artist, as charismatic as Bruce Lee himself in his quest for revenge. Too bad this actor is now semi-retired from movie industry...(sorry for my horrible english, but I'm french)

stuartmcd The great thing about this film (and the sort of thing that upsets people who like seeing martial arts fights where you can see every kick and every punch) is that most of the fighting is just blurs of motion punctuated by shouting and clashing blades. This is what I love in HK fantasies: fight scenes that are so incomprehensible you're left going: huh?Tsui Hark's best example is Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, where the viewer has to actually fill in the blanks for themselves. It's edited in such a way that that the film we see feels like only a portion of the story. In some contexts this technique would be stupid, but in fantasy it's wonderful. It's the inverse of the computer graphics bare-all approach, and it's lucky that we had the HK film industry to provide an alternative to Hollywood in this regard. (I say had, because, since Storm Riders, cg in HK is more prevalent than before.)This approach to fight scenes is impressionistic, and with the final fightscene in Dao it's almost operatic. At no stage do you get a feeling that the fight is actually rational. The use of sound and music in the film is also wonderful, especially in the menacing flashback scene. It's hard to think of a more effective way of setting up a backstory, and gives new life to that tired old cliche, the revenge story.So that's all good. Sometimes, however, the impressionism gets a bit out of hand. Things take on a Wong Kar Wai pretentiousness, like the horrible Ashes of time, where Leslie Cheung sits around feeling sorry for himself for no appreciable reason. In Dao, the voiceover of the female character gets really annoying. Her mutterings only really serve to remind us she is there, as she has only one pivotal scene in the film (where tells the hero his origin story).The film is also a bit over-bloody for my taste, but it certainly leaves one with no illusions about the brutalness of the world in which the film is set.Dao is one of those films that is so strange and vivid it leaves a strong resonance with the viewer long after it is over. It has faults by the barrel, but I'd rather have it and Tsui Hark with us than a legion of James Camerons and Roland Emmerichs.