Film Review: The Swordsman of All Swordsmen (Old School Kung Fu Fest)
By: Joseph Perry (Twitter - Uphill Both Ways Podcast)
From its opening fight sequence in which a man takes on a group of villains while holding his young son on his back to the film’s unexpected climax, renowned director Joseph Kuo’s 1968 feature The Swordsman of All Swordsmen (Yi dai jian wang) is a unique take on China’s martial arts movie genre known as wuxia.
Set in ancient times, like all wuxia films, The Swordsman of All Swordsmen finds that young boy mentioned earlier now grown up and ready to avenge the death of his entire family — more than 50 members — by seeking out and killing the five men who slaughtered them. Kuo, who cowrote the screenplay with Shui-Han Chiang and Tien-Yung Hsu, uses this basic martial arts movie set up as a launching pad for exploring philosophical and ethical themes not usually considered so deeply in films of this genre.
As Lai-Chieh Tsai (Peng Tien) travels the land seeking out the murderers, his reputation precedes him and he is challenged to a duel by the renowned Black Dragon (Chiang Nan), who is chivalrous enough to delay their fight until Tsai completes his mission of revenge. After being struck by one of the murderer’s poisonous darts, Tsai is nursed back to health by Flying Swallow (Polly Kuan) — no stranger to martial arts herself — for reasons that she tells her brother Black Dragon he will understand soon enough, but no spoilers here. Tsan-Ting Lin’s cinematography is terrific, and Kuo stages several battles in wide open spaces in the great outdoors, including a duel on the beach as waves lap over the fighters’ feet. These elements make for thrilling scenes that find the camera following the action and providing unique framing.
The three leads all give superb performances, aided by a solid supporting cast that includes Chein Tsao as Yun Chung-Chun, one of the family’s murderers who has regretted his actions and is now blind, and Meng-Hua Yang as Pearl, a young woman whose dying father proposed her hand in marriage to Tsai because of his rescue attempt. All of these actors were seasoned performers, and it shows here.
The Swordsman of All Swordsmen boasts plenty of intrigue, truly engaging drama, and exciting fight scenes. Fans of classic Asian martial arts cinema should find it one of the better offerings in the wuxia subgenre, and it’s a perfect starting point for newcomers to wuxia. This digitally restored version looks and sounds beautiful, and comes strongly recommended.
The Swordsman of All Swordsmen screens as part of the 10th Old School Kung Fu Fest: Sword Fighting Heroes Edition! with in person screenings at Metrograph in New York City and remotely on SVOD via Metrograph At Home from April 21–30, 2023. For more information, visit https://metrograph.com/category/oldschool-kungfufest/.
Joseph Perry is one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast (whenitwascool.com/up-hill-both-ways-podcast/). He also writes for the websites Gruesome Magazine (gruesomemagazine.com), The Scariest Things (scariesthings.com), Horror Fuel (horrorfuel.com), B&S About Movies (bandsaboutmovies.com), Uphill Both Ways (ubwpodcast.com), The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict (gbvreviews.com), and Diabolique Magazine (diaboliquemagazine.com), and film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope (videoscopemag.com) and Drive-In Asylum (etsy.com/shop/GroovyDoom).
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