The Swordsman in Double-Flag Town

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Arthur U This movie puts almost any other action movie to shame. One true action movie. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 09/11/23 Full Review Audience Member my favorite Chinese Western movie! Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/22/23 Full Review Audience Member He Ping channels both Sergio Leone and Tian Zhuangzhuang in his quaint piece of cinema exotica, Swordsmen In Double Flag Town. The remote desert setting and bleak theme including supressed and uneducated peasants suggests standard fifth generation fare, but the bold editing and general tone is strictly Spaghetti Western. Characters are gradually presented as morally ambiguous, thus ironically contradicting the heroic hyperbole of the introductory voiceover and theme music. The timeless DIY-quality of director He's approach to foreign genre conventions is a commendable contrast to most commercial Chinese filmmaking of today. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/29/23 Full Review Audience Member Officially the first feature by Ping He, the director of "The Warriors of Heaven and Earth" (2003). This film is one of the most important Chinese films made in the last 20 years, for it is the pioneer of modern Chinese action entertainment films. Also, it is the first successful and recognized film which uses the huge desert area in western China as the setting of an action film - In 80s, only those human dramas by the 5th generation Chinese film directors, such as "Yellow Earth" (1984) and "Life on a String" (1991) by Kaige Chen, used desert as setting mainly to add symbolic meanings to the story. What Ping He does in this film is, in terms of the setting and the plot, to make Western in China. The film itself is not too good technically. There are some poor parts mainly in how to excite audiences because of its too monotonous story development and editing. Action scenes are not even poor, because it doesn't show the actual sword fighting - usually villains kill people in one cut, and even in very important battle scenes, either you don't see what has happened, because editing is too poor and totally useless cloud of sand (in the last fight). Cheap electronic music does not match at all, especially the cheap sound SFX in scenes in which the hero use supernatural power is terrible. However, there are still some scenes very well crafted and exciting. The plot is very interesting too. If someone or Ping He himself remake this now, it would be much better film. It's worth to check out this film anyway. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member i couldn't finish this one. too much meat chopping. and i don't mean swordfighting. one of the main characters owns a horsemeat restaurant. and they show its operation in detail frequently. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/09/23 Full Review Audience Member Slow and too much inspired by Leone to my taste. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/21/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Swordsman in Double-Flag Town

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