Swordsman 2: Analysis

Swordsman and Swordsman 2 are the films which gave again attraction to a kind in loss of success : the wu xia pian. Swordsman founded the aesthetic and stylistics bases of this revival. Swordsman 2 , because of its critical and popular success, became a true phenomenon of mode, followed by a lot of luxurious wu xia pian, a fireworks before the crisis.

Modernization of a kind

We used to see magic and supernatural capacities in the wu xia pian books. When the first movies appeared, we could not see, for technical reasons, the same effects cause they were too rudimentary at this time, the directors preferred exploit the athletic capacities of their actors and use cables. At the end of the Eighties, Tsui Hark sought to launch again the kind, and he wanted to return at it literary origins by using the modern special effects which he spread largely in the colony with Zu , and by founding its own company of special effects: the cinefex Workshop.

In Swordsman 2 , the special effects are numerous, making particularly spectacular the confrontations between the various characters. Flying swords, torn off trees, mortal water tears... Lots of ideas. Like Chinese ghost story , if all these effects are far from being perfect on the technical level, they had the advantage to never being unequal. Judiciously arranged, it gave life to the delirious visions of Ching Siu-tung and Tsui Hark, while ensuring the movie an aesthetic coherence, a style and a charm which are owned by Swordman .

The revival of the wu xia pian orchestrated by Tsui Hark is also due to the work on the editing. Extremely fast cutting, even hysterical, the action becoming regularly illegible, the story is founded on the movement and the speed. This style was very criticized at the realease of Swordsman , especially by the Western journalists who saw in this movie only one succession of incomprehensible plans. But with Swordsman 2 , Tsui Hark and Ching Siu-tung kept on. And the Asian public agreed.

Very close to the manga, this esthetics diverts because it is more linked to one visual representation of action, than to its logical organization. To appreciate this spectacle, extremely diverting for the neophyte, it is necessary to agree to not understand the plans which are followed themselves. It is not the most important. The spectator must agree to let himself carried in a visual swirl of a great beauty which is conceived like fireworks. For this reason Swordsman 2 is to be considered as an anthem to the cinema and its own nature : the movement.

Finally the Tsui Hark conception of the wu xia pian, is very close to what it had been done in Zu , even if supernatural beings are replaced by warriors. But the visual processing remains basically the same : an certain esthetics, an epileptic editing and special effects rendering the action more spectacular.

2. The fight to gain the power -

Like all good wu xia pian, Swordsman 2 is about the fights between clans. But it is far from being a simple battle between goods and bads. it is based on the continuity of films like The Sword or Duel To The Death , in which the warrior ideology is debated.

This discussion is due to the processing of the principal character. True anti-hero, Ling does not have any warrior ambitions, cause he wanted only to live in peace, but too even if he is a highly skilled warrior, he is also a young and naive man, easy to be handled. Perhaps these defects make him a human character, but they will also make his comrades lost the life cause Asia would use Ling, keeping him at his place the night when he would kill them.

Moreover Ling couldn't manage to overcome his destiny. All his adventures are due to a simple gesture, help his friend Ying to find his father. Then he would find himself in spite of him in the heart of a fratricidal fight which is not his. Without political project, he would act only for personal reasons, i.e. to avenge his dead comrades.

While being implied in this fight, even if he defeat the tyrant Asia, an other Asia is enthroned, a double which is the brother of the first Asia. The fight of the hero would be useless and moreover Ling would have to be safe in Japan, the country of Asia allied friends. Thus violence does not bring any solution, it makes only change the problem.

Having a pessimistic look on the wargames, with Swordsman 2 , Tsui Hark revisits the philosophy of the kind. The film however isn't a caricature. If humour is present, the political context is not forgotten (the 97-handover is not far), and give a certain gravity to this look that the film have on the power.

3. Asia: an allegory on the power

Fascinating character and highly complex, Asia is without any doubt the most interesting invention of Swordsman 2 , which is better producted than the first opus, but which does not bring finally anything more on the formal and ideological level.

Warrior in search of power, Asia used totalitarian policy by defeating all opponent and seeking to increase his power. Manipulator, using the will of money and terror, he has a very machivellian step. His project is not therefore purely malefic, cause he wanted stability to be able to live in peace. Nevertheless he incarne dictatorship : to impose itself by violence and make everything needed to keep power.

Obviously, wearing all in red, it is easy to compare Asia to the communist power. If Tsui Hark is certainly not a partisan of the Chinese system, he nevertheless had the intelligence to avoid making Asia a caricature of the dictatorship. The great idea is this transformation into a woman. He wanted so the power that he would do what is written in the Sacred Scroll : emasculation. And not only this, but the more Asia learnt the teaching of the Sacred Scroll, the more he became woman.

What is enthralling, it is that this transformation is not only physical. When Ling believed that Asia was a woman, Asia would discover new feelings. Indeed their relationship was not established on a power relationship like Asia knew, but on the sharing, of the wine in particular, and on complicity. This experiment would cause a breakdown in the mind of Asia. There is different things than terror and domination. Consequently the character must assume these two irreconcilable positions. And it is this breakdown which would cause his death, being killed by his friend Ling.

This duality made Asia a tragic being. Its thirst of power was his loss. Not because he found more powerful than him, but because when he became a woman, he lost the man's merciless mind that gave him the power.

Never Tsui Hark had have a so advanced political reflexion. Asia undoubtedly constitutes one of his more beautiful characters. Ambivalent character, played by Brigitte Lin, it shows the hong kong people kong people fears about the 97-handover. But more than that, it gives to the spectators a complex and attractive vision of the political system when it is dictatorship. A subject which remains current in a world where the democracy is a reality only known by few individuals.

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