THE SWORDSMAN
TONY CHING SIU-TUNG. TSUI HARK
A Critical Study
By Jeremy Mark Robinson
This is a study of the Swordsman film series produced by Tsui Hark and helmed by Tony Ching Siu-tung.
The Swordsman is a gorgeous mix of elements: comedy, romance, spectacle, music, characterization, history/ mythology, Chinese culture - and of course action and martial arts. The Swordsman is also a truly inspired vision of the jiangzhu, the martial arts world, which Tony Ching and Tsui Hark explored many times; and, of course, Tsui had dived into the jiangzhu in his very first feature film as director, The Butterfly Murders, while Tony Ching had lived in the cinematic jiangzhu since the 1960s (working on his father's films at Shaws).
The casting of The Swordsman is marvellous, and each of the principals embodies their characters as well as popping out of them - there is always a feeling in Chinese, historical action movies of this kind that it's all a pantomime, that it's pure entertainment, and should be taken as just that - a wild show. Actors aren't allowed to wink at the camera (rightly), but the movie does. The cast play it straight - but also with plenty of Peking Operatic over-acting. They don't need to nod at the audience, because the situations are so outlandish.
The Swordsman movies were adapted from The Smiling, Proud Wanderer by Jin Yong (Louis Cha, 1924-2018), which have been used for five or so TV series (and a Shaw Brothers movie of 1978). So the Swordsman films are by no means the only interpretations of the novels of Jin Yong, one of the best-known authors of wuxia stories. In fact, a TV series is a probably more fitting form for adaptation, because Jin Yong's stories contain a huge cast of characters and numerous events. Those depicted in the Swordsman movies are but one small segment (and a loose adaptation at that).
Tony Ching Siu-tung (b. 1953) started out as an actor and stuntman, working in movies in the late 1960s and 1970s; he moved into television as martial arts co-ordinator in the late 1970s and thru the 1980s (on several historical TV series); he moved up to directing movies with 1983's Duel To the Death.
Tony Ching Siu-tung's two signature works are probably A Chinese Ghost Story and The Swordsman 2. Critically, those two films (and their movie series, the Chinese Ghost Story series and the Swordsman series), have garnered the highest criticial accolades (and they were big hits financially), and The Swordsman 2 has been the subject of numerous analyses of gender-bending issues in cinema. The sight of Brigitte Lin in drag and later fooling around with Jet Li as a 'woman' seems to drive film critics goo-goo.
Tony Ching Siu-tung has won top awards for the action choreography for The Witch From Nepal, Shaolin Soccer, New Dragon Gate Inn, Hero and The Swordsman.
Fully illustrated, with images from the Swordsman films and the films of Tony Ching.
With filmography, bibliography and notes. 168 pages.
www.crmoon.com
Robinson, Jeremy Mark: - "JEREMY ROBINSON has published poetry, fiction, and studies of J.R.R. Tolkien, Samuel Beckett, Thomas Hardy, André Gide and D.H. Lawrence. Robinson has edited poetry books by Novalis, Ursula Le Guin, Friedrich Hölderlin, Francesco Petrarch, Dante Alighieri, Arseny Tarkovsky, and Rainer Maria Rilke. Books on film and animation include: The Akira Book - The Art of Katsuhiro Otomo - The Art of Masamune Shirow - The Ghost In the Shell Book - Fullmetal Alchemist - Cowboy Bebop: The Anime and Movie - The Cinema of Hayao Miyazaki - Hayao Miyazaki: Pocket Guide - Princess Mononoke: Pocket Movie Guide - Spirited Away: Pocket Movie Guide - Blade Runner and the Cinema of Philip K. Dick - Blade Runner: Pocket Movie Guide - The Cinema of Donald Cammell - Performance: Donald Cammell: Nic Roeg: Pocket Movie Guide - Pasolini: Il Cinema di Poesia/ The Cinema of Poetry - Salo: Pocket Movie Guide - The Trilogy of Life Movies: Pocket Movie Guide - The Gospel According To Matthew: Pocket Movie Guide - The Ecstatic Cinema of Tony Ching Siu-tung - Tsui Hark: The Dragon Master of Chinese Cinema - The Swordsman: Pocket Movie Guide - A Chinese Ghost Story: Pocket Movie Guide - Ken Russell: England's Great Visionary Film Director and Music Lover - Tommy: Ken Russell: The Who: Pocket Movie Guide - Women In Love: Ken Russell: D.H. Lawrence: Pocket Movie Guide - The Devils: Ken Russell: Pocket Movie Guide - Walerian Borowczyk: Cinema of Erotic Dreams - The Beast: Pocket Movie Guide - The Lord of the Rings Movies - The Fellowship of the Ring: Pocket Movie Guide - The Two Towers: Pocket Movie Guide - The Return of the King: Pocket Movie Guide - Jean-Luc Godard: The Passion of Cinema - The Sacred Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky - Andrei Tarkovsky: Pocket Guide."
