Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

bentheds i loved the accuracy of the ninjas, ok other than there flying. although many who did not know much about ninjas believed that they had mystical powers such as flying, running so fast that they could not be seen, invisibility and so on. there were no black ninja suits, but instead the type of attire ninjas are more likely to have worn. very young jet li.

rogierr Provided you are slightly interested in fantasy, horror, and a little kung-fu, this film is the best in the genre. Great choreography and music, ok humor, very good lighting, nearly perfect sound (unlike many fantasy flicks), a very good story and colorful and dynamic cinematography (Lau Moon Tong) that surpasses even Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Lee, 2000) sometimes though it is nine years older. On every other fields CTHD is simply crushed by this fabulous film. I can't believe CTHD got 22843 votes and Swordsman 2 less than 1% of that. Mwahahahehe: have all these guys missed something! :-PIn Asia Jet Li is very famous and most Chinese who are interested in movies will probably have seen this already. In the rest of the world this is probably only seen by people who liked Evil Dead (Raimi, 1982), Chinese Ghost Story (also directed by Siu-Tung Ching, 1987) AND at recently CTHD. Featured are Recoiling whip, Flying bomb, Rotation of the stars (massive action scene with 6 swordfighters), Essence absorbing stance, Invincible Dawn, Kiddo and Scum Bag (last two are characters). Some of the story elements are hard to follow, but that doesn't diminish the entertaining value (story continues AND action continues): just go see it again if you didn't understand it 8-)THIS is groundbreaking: not CTHD. The action scenes in CTHD may be shot beautifully and without many cuts, but Swordsman 2 definitely has more fantasy and the director isn't afraid of showing blood like Ang Lee WAS unfortunately. Swordsman 2 tries to embed the story in Japanese civil war and therefore the film starts with Japanese swordfighters (speaking Kantonese though) and Japanese music. After the titles we are left with gravity-defying swordfighters of Chinese AND Japanese origin and ninjas as they fight in South China in the 22nd year of Emperor Sun. Also there is a megalomaniac who slowly changes into a woman and there is a girl who constantly is mistaken for a man (not exactly like Vasquez in 'Aliens'). Don't ask for the significance of that plz. Swordsman 2 (haven't seen part 1 yet) is NOT over-rated with 8.6 (211 votes), and provided you liked Iron Monkey (Woo-Ping Yuen, 1993), this one will blow you out of your socks and chop you in half. Finally, the popular Stormriders (Wai Keung Lau, 1998) also couldn't come near this masterpiece.10 points out of 10 :-)

drngor I'll probably get a bunch of death threats for making this comment, but frankly, I think this movie is overrated. Now don't get me wrong, I've seen much of Ching Siu Tung's work before. I'm not biased by his hyper-use of wires in his films (although I wished more of his action scenes would be like Blacksheep Affair). There are a lot of great visual ideas in this film, but they are shown in one scene, and that's it. I thought the snake-fu and the ninjas riding giant shurikens were cool, but underused. As with most Ching Siu Tung movies, the action scenes are too short. I thought the final showdown was especially disappointing: more verbal jousting then sword jousting. There was better flying swordplay in Butterfly and Sword. I won't comment on the acting and characters, as the version I watched was (horribly) dubbed in Hmong. However, overall this film is a disappointment.

inanna5 If you only see one movie from Hong Kong, look no further. This one packed the best of all that kept HK's movie industry at the forefront of the action/ martial arts genre. The androgynous leading role also revived veteran actress Brigitte Lin's career, launching scores of other copycats casting her in such roles. She completely overshadows everyone else, despite the star-studded cast (incl Jet Li). The action sequences were stunning and kudos also for the meticulous costume-design and music score - a classic!