This end fight is like the mind blowingly incredible finale in John Woo's A Better Tomorrow 2, choreographed by the great Ching Siu Tung: both of these finales get so over the top and (thus) separated from the rest of the film that it gets even surreal and thus makes the film's own world look even more impressive and striking and hammers the message and images to the viewer's head. The action goes even further in the final 15 minutes during the big fight when all the main characters finally get to take their mission to the end. The action scenes consist of many close ups and unconventional camera movements that create the kind of hysterical impact I can remember from Jackie Chan's Drunken Master 2 (1994) for example. The editor in Dao is Kam Ma who has also edited John Woo's A Better Tomorrow films (19) among many others. The action is so incredible it again makes me wonder how they edit their films like this. Again the smoke and darkness is something that I simply cannot mention having found in too many Western films. The film is very dark and haunting especially when the guy has lost his arm and is training in agony in the misty and menacing house with hysterical female (this character is also very bad and should not have been so noisy and really brainless all the time) taking care of him. Hardly any mainstream audience will like films like Dao because they lack almost every possible entertaining or pleasant element that can be found in Hong Kong martial arts films. Would you have gone to take revenge if you were in the one armed swordsman's shoes? The visuals here are quite amazing and this belongs alongside Ringo Lam's Burning Paradise (1994) and Billy Chung's The Assassin (1993) to the Hong Kong's hyper dark martial art films that never are as near as "light" and also humorous as some Once Upon a Time in China (1991) for instance or other box office hits. This film is pretty pessimistic as it hasn't any happy or "natural" characters at all, but since we know (those who dare to accept these sides in themselves) what kind of a creature human being is, films like this start to make much more sense and force us to look at the mirror. The ending, the imagined happiness, is fortunately there but still I think there should have been more contrast to the characters' inability to be like a feeling human being. Of course the film would have needed an example among its characters of how a brighter life could be achieved but still the coldness and lack of expressing emotions is not there without its purpose because this is exactly the film's theme. The film depicts people without the willing or ability to express their emotions and that's why many of the reviews seem to dislike the film telling the characters are very cold and inhuman. What follows is more or less (usually more) amazing imagery and bits of sword fighting from this unique film maker of East. Soon a violent murder takes place, a hand gets chopped off and revenge comes to mind, but none of the characters seem to care or think about their emotions but only to go after their insticts which in this case are mostly about violence and getting even. The film's narrator and lead female is Ling (Song Lei) who is secretly in love with both of the men but is not quite sure which one will be her loved one. Vincent Zhao Wen Zhuo aka Chiu Man Cheuk is Ting On and Moses Chan Ho is Iron Head and they're both very loyal to their master, an old monk who has teched them during their young lives. The film turned out to be among the best Hong Kong cinema miracles from the nineties I've seen so far. Tsui's new vision is something that dropped my jaws now that I watched it for the third time after many years and without remembering almost anything about it. Tsui Hark's Dao aka The Blade (Hong Kong, 1995) is an updating of the old one armed swordsman legend that also has been depicted earlier in the history of Hong Kong cinema.
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