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'Hao bingqi' - its a line towards the end of the film that means 'good cold arms.' This is a wonderful wuxia tale of duels, betrayal and martial etiquette set in Tianjin around the ROC period. Lush costumes and ornate sets with a funky overplayed soundtrack, but a decent plot parsed by nice weapon fights. Lots of Push knives - like push hands but with blades. The final alley gauntlet is great fun. Not too sanguineous and a tad over sentimental, but very enjoyable. Wuxia films are really classy now.
Netflixable & DOOM recommended.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
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Someone in our Tai Chi class pointed us to a specific fight clip in this movie some months ago. After watching the clip, I decided to check out the opening and ended up watching the whole film.
There's a tremendous dignity to the fights, and so many different weapons, if I recall. And that final alley gauntlet, highly dignified in so many ways, showing respect for the elders by making them the most proficient. That was Chen Kuan-tai in there at the end, right? And some others before him who looked vaguely familiar but I never looked them up.
I'm nobody's pony.
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Yup, Chen Kuan Tai. I wish he had a bigger role.
This is another flick by Xu Haofeng, who also did Grandmaster, Sword Identity and Judge Archer. He practices Xingyi, which gives his films a little more martial veracity. I liked Grandmaster, wasn't that fond of Sword Identity and still haven't seen Judge Archer.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
