The Swordsman (2020, Choi Jae-hoon)

Many years ago, Val Kilmer talked about how the original Tombstone director got replaced and one of that guy’s crimes was making the actors wear accurate textiles, which doesn’t matter on film. You can have a lightweight poncho and it’ll look the same on screen.

Welp.

I don’t know if it’s the benefits of shooting in 8k or whatever, but even though The Swordsman is not a cheap movie, it looks like a cheap movie because you can tell the costumes are very modernly produced. It’s very distracting because it never stops. There’s always something else onscreen to wonder about. To be fair, of course, it’s not just the costumes. The movie looks so hyper-real the sets look like a renaissance faire; so if Korea has Joseon Faires… Swordsman looks like they filmed it on the off-season.

Some of that responsibility falls on cinematographer Son Won-ho, who shoots Swordsman way too flat. Director Choi is going for un-steady Steadicam for reality’s sake or whatever, but Son shoots it documentary-reality. Like, I would much rather watch the movie where pseudo-costar Jeong Man-sik figures out Mr. Big villain Joe Taslim is a comically bad actor and then Jeong talks about it in an interview segment, but unfortunately Swordsman is a historical action movie and Taslim’s supposed to be serious.

Even though he really adds to the Joseon Faire thing because he’s like if the owner had a talentless but good-looking enough kid who made a movie in the summer. Or winter. Whatever. Offseason. Oh, and for no reason at all brought along his white wife (Angelina Danilova). Everything except a couple times it appears Taslim laughs out-of-character with Taslim and Danilova (who, to be fair, isn’t in it much but is cringe whenever she’s around) is appallingly bad.

Swordsman runs an hour and forty. When Taslim shows up, it seems like he might just be a cameo.

Nope.

Half the movie is laughably bad thanks to Taslim. While the whole movie raises an eyebrow thanks to costumes and sets.

The other half of the movie, about former king’s guard Hyuk Jang now raising the dethroned and presumably decapitated king’s daughter, Kim Hyeon-soo, in hiding. She’s a teenager now and she wants to go into town to the mall or whatever and so Hyuk finally takes her. Oh, and Hyuk’s blind, which is entirely unimportant and just how they get him to town.

So Taslim’s dad is ruler of the Chinese Qing dynasty and they’re forcing the Koreans to give them their daughters so the Koreans have to buy them back or else. Swordsman never gets darker than when it’s fairly callous about the whole kidnapped women in cages being sent to China to be sex slaves. It’s arguably glib about it.

But Kim’s charming and Hyuk’s not bad, he just hasn’t done his returning hero arc yet so we don’t know if he’s going to be good as the Korean Zatoichi.

He’s middling?

The sword fight choreography is pretty good for a lot of Swordsman, just not like… the beginning or the ending.

For a while it seems like the film might be able to get over some of its problems for a satisfactory resolve—the second act gets good—but it does not. It’s a bummer.

Especially since everyone interesting disappears in the third act. Instead it’s Jeong not paying off in his extended cameo, lots of bad Taslim, lots of middling Hyuk, and a little bit less sword fighting than you’d want. They’re saving up for the disappointing final battle.

Gong Sang-ah is good in a small part as the shop owner of the Joseon Faire tchotchke shop who apparently wet-nursed Kim as a baby and is majorly into Hyuk. Lee Na-kyung is less good as the big city shop owner who gets duped into human trafficking because… I mean, she’s a woman and Choi’s script isn’t very good. Lots of bland misogyny.

There are also Taslim’s three goons who Hyuk has to fight his way through in the game. They look very silly because of the costuming and photography, but they’re still better than Taslim.

Having Taslim as the bottom really does make even the worst supporting performance a delight because it means the camera isn’t on Taslim.

So, lots of solid sword fighting action—even though it doesn’t seem like there will be—but nowhere near good enough to make up for the rest. And, lastly, if you do see The Swordsman, opt for a low resolution. It might help.

Not sure what would help with Taslim though. Maybe the dubbed version.”

The Raid (2011, Gareth Evans), the international version

For the first forty-five minutes or so, The Raid is able to keep going on the idea lead Iko Uwais is going to be the most kick ass fighter in the movie. There a handful of short expository scenes throughout the film, plus a prologue, where Uwais prays, does some martial arts workouts (it’s all Indonesian martial arts in the film), kisses pregnant wife Fikha Effendi goodbye, has plot twist foreshadowing moment with dad Henky Solaiman, and is off to work—but otherwise it’s all action. For a while it’s shooting action, as Uwais and his fellow SWAT team members infiltrate a high-rise tenement run by drug lord Ray Sahetapy. Once it goes to martial arts action, however, it’s all martial arts action, finally letting Uwais deliver on what the prologue promised.

Except by then we’ve already seen Yayan Ruhian and the movie doesn’t even pretend Uwais is going to surpass Ruhian. When Uwais does finally get around to fighting him, it’s Donny Alamsyah teaming up with Uwais to fight Ruhian. Director Evans knows no one’s going to think Uwais can handle this one on his own, which sort of leaves Uwais an awkward action hero. He starts the movie a renegade—because he’s the only caring SWAT cop, which we know because they were ready to kill civilian Iang Darmawan for being around and Uwais steps in to save the guy—ends up doing the action scenes out of a couple different buddy cop movies, then ends it all solo, even though he’s with a literal cop buddy for it. But it never feels like Uwais is getting short-changed, at least not in the second half; the hero of the first half is Joe Taslim. He’s the sergeant and the only one who knows there’s something shady about the raid because he knows Pierre Gruno is a shady guy. Meanwhile Gruno doesn’t want cannon fodder like Uwais getting in his way, even though Gruno’s not a martial arts bad ass like everyone else in the movie.

The Taslim as lead thing is just weird because director Evans just assumes the audience is going to go for it. The Raid has some beautifully executed action sequences and some great fight choreography, but Evans’s best instinct is for what works with the cast. The movie starts with Uwais, sticks with Uwais—introducing Taslim as the leader and quickly establishing his relationship with Gruno—but when it’s time for Taslim to take on Ruhian, it’s not a supporting character’s fight scene. It’s the big hero’s fight scene.

Uwais’s arc sort of stalling out probably doesn’t help him maintain the spotlight. After the first big action sequence, Uwais has a whole “help wounded comrade” survive arc. Tegar Satrya’s the wounded comrade. The movie’s only ever established he’s a dick, which makes Uwais saving him somewhat more dramatic maybe, but no more entertaining to watch. Plus Satrya’s unlikable. Only he and Gruno are unlikable. Everyone else, good or bad, is enjoyable to watch. Like Alfridus Godfred, who’s basically just “Machete Guy,” because everyone gets their hands on a machete. Godfred’s terrifying, just a walking embodiment of probable dismemberment. But you want to see him, you want to see him more, as the film builds to whatever fight sequence he’s going to participate in. Again, Evans has great instincts for rising action scene tension.

The drama stuff, involving Uwais, Alamsyah, Gruno, Darmawan, and Sahetapy? Eh. Sahetapy’s is the best because Sahetapy’s a very evil hoot of a villain. Evans also knows how violent to get and not to get, when to show, when to tell, when to imply. But the drama? It’s take it or leave it. It’s not bad, just pedestrian and superfluous. Or should be.

See, while everyone who’s got a big fight scene—Taslim, Uwais, Alamsyah, and, obviously, Ruhian—is great at the fighting… Evans isn’t great at the directing. He’s good enough at it for a while, but when it’s the marathon Ruhian vs. Uwais and Alamsyah fight? It gets boring. Evans can showcase his actors’ skills but he can’t keep them compelling. Evans also edited the film and most of the editing is excellent, but the longer fight scenes—usually when there’s not scenery around to damage—the cuts are just between not great shots. It’s a bummer.

Nice photography from Matt Flannery and Dimas Imam Subhono, great music by Mike Shinoda and Joseph Trapanese (which is the difference between this international version and the original, plus an added subtitle, Redemption, because of rights issues). The Raid is about as good as you can get for an all-action martial arts movie with the barest hints of a real story and flat direction on the martial arts themselves. It’s very impressive work from Evans and company.