Swordsman, The (2020) Review

The Swordsman | Blu-ray & DVD (Well Go USA)

Director: Choi Jae-Hoon
Cast: Jang Hyuk, Kim Hyun-Soo, Joe Taslim, Jeong Man-Sik, Lee Na-Kyung, Lee Min-Hyuk
Running Time: 100 min.

By Paul Bramhall

The swordplay genre has fallen largely out of fashion over the last decade in Korean cinema, after it spent most of the 00’s being a regular fixture on cinema screens thanks to the likes of 2003’s Sword in the Moon, 2005’s Shadowless Sword, and 2010’s Blades of Blood. 10 years on, and 2020 brought a welcome revival for the genre in the form of the aptly named The Swordsman, the directorial debut of Choi Jae-hoon.

Equally as apt is the decision to cast Jang Hyuk as the swordsman the title refers to. A practitioner of Jeet Kune Do and former professional Taekwondo athlete, Hyuk’s big break came when he was cast as the lead in 2001’s Volcano High. An early entry in what became known as the Korean Wave, the futuristic high-school beat ‘em up took plenty of cues from The Matrix for its action aesthetic, but is perhaps most infamous for its American MTV dub, in which the likes of Snoop Dogg, André 3000, and Method Man voice the characters. While Hyuk was cast for his action prowess, it was his good looks that determined his future career, with turns in the likes of Windstruck and Innocent Thing being a world away from the action genre. It’s fitting then, that almost 20 years since Volcano High, in The Swordsman he’s come full circle, taking on a role which provides plenty of opportunities to adapt his talents to wielding a sword. 

The plot for The Swordsman is as simple as its title. Hyuk plays a swordsman who live in solitude up a mountain with his daughter, having escaped a coup to overthrow the king several years ago that left him with a debilitating eye condition due to sword shrapnel. The daughter, now a teenager and played by Kim Hyun-soo (Silenced, The Five), is desperate to find a cure to prevent him from becoming completely blind, so leaves the mountain to find a village where there’s known to be a herb that can help heal his vision. Unfortunately her trip coincides with a group of Qing thugs entering town, representatives of the dynasty looking to supress Joseon, who have a habit of enslaving the local wives and daughters to be sent back to the Qing Empire as gifts. 

When Hyun-soo innocently agrees to be taken on as a maid for a noble family in return for payment, little does she know that really she’s being hired as a stand-in, so that the family don’t have to give up their own daughter, leading to Hyuk taking up arms once more to bring her back. A Korean period piece spin on Taken wouldn’t be an entirely unfair way to describe The Swordsman, as while the narrative flits with broader themes, it never goes so far as to accomplish doing anything with them. In the opening flashback we witness Hyuk defend the king against a group of royal usurpers, however why they’re rebelling is never explored, and future character relationships based on the event fail to carry any real weight to them. All these factors are fine though, since The Swordsman works best when it’s a simple tale of a master swordsman unsheathing his blade once more to get his daughter back.

Any heroic swordsman needs a suitably hateful villain for the audience to root against, and director Jae-hoon has made the unusual but welcome choice to cast Indonesian actor Joe Taslim as the Qing’s fearsome swordsman. Taslim made a lasting impression with his roles in Indonesia’s The Raid and The Night Comes for Us, so it’s great to see him turning up in a Korean production. Admittedly, his role is rather one note, there to speak in a villainous whisper for the majority of the runtime until called upon to duel against Hyuk in the finale, however he does his best within the limits of the role. Amusingly, he’s also followed around by popular internet celebrity Angelina Danilova, a Russian K-pop fan known for her YouTube videos. Danilova somewhat offsets Taslim’s limited role, as she has even less to do, and gets a single word line for the whole movie. With that being said, she plays a key role in the finale, so all is not wasted.

It’s rare for a Korean production to sell itself purely on its action, so the fact that in the last couple of years we’ve had Bruce Khan’s Revenger and now The Swordsman feels a little like we’re being spoiled, and the action here definitely delivers. Appropriately its entirely sword based, and while there’s the occasional nod to Kenji Tanigaki’s innovative action choreography in the Rurouni Kenshin series, by enlarge the action team have crafted an aesthetic they can call their own. Fights consist of both one on one battles and one versus many, allowing for plenty of variety and a broad canvas to work with, and special mention should go to the weapon design. Recalling the unique weaponry that Tong Gaai used to create in Shaw Brothers movies of old, Hyuk’s sword finishes with a double pronged tip, allowing him to trap other swordsman’s blades in his own which is put to effective use.

Unlike recent efforts such as the Jung Doo-hong vehicle Fist and Furious, where the action was let down by frantic editing and camera placement, in The Swordsman as much thought has been put into the how the action is shot as it has the choreography itself. I’ve always been of the opinion that in the best action scenes the camera is a player of equal importance as the performers themselves, something that Sammo Hung mastered in the late 70’s golden era of kung fu cinema, and more recently has been reflected in movies like The Raid and its sequel. Here the camera follows the action, tracks around it, and knows when to zoom in and out, making the sword clanging a pleasure to watch and really enabling the viewer to feel like they’re a part of it. Of particular highlight is a scene when Hyuk takes on a group of armed gunmen, where the camera follows every duck, dodge, and stroke of the blade to thrilling effect.

Taslim is followed around by a trio of entertaining lackeys, all of whom look like they’ve been transferred directly from a 70’s Korean kung fu flick, the fact that they’re bad guys telegraphed through their wild and unruly haircuts. Played by Ji Gun-woo, Ji-Seung-hyun, and Cheon Yeong-am, they each get an opportunity to shine, their characters existing mainly to provide The Swordsman with more actions scenes than if they didn’t, which in this particular genre is always welcomed. The finale against Taslim is suitably lengthy, and while it was entirely expected, Jae-hoon does well to incorporate Hyuk’s failing eyesight into the encounter, allowing for a tangible sense of danger to be felt. There was one particularly brutal part which I really enjoyed that I won’t spoil here, but it involves the notion that Taslim assumes Hyuk is a righteous swordsman so can take certain liberties, and the result of such an assumption is a harsh but welcome one.

The weak link comes in the form of Jung Man-sik’s (Rampant, The Tiger: An Old Hunter’s Tale) character, who’s responsible for the confrontation that leads to Hyuk’s debilitating eyesight that we see in the pre-title prologue. Man-sik’s role in the narrative as a royal swordsman who’s become disillusioned with the political power struggles should be important, however it never feels that way, and the reunion between him and Hyuk feels largely superfluous. Man-sik himself is an actor who rarely puts in a bad performance, so I don’t believe it’s his fault, but rather his role is a victim to the narratives structure, which by the time his appearance is supposed to carry weight, the plot already feels like it’s become about Hyuk rescuing his daughter.

While its unlikely to start a trend of swordplay flicks coming out of Korea, as a stand-alone movie The Swordsman delivers exactly what it says on the tin. Proving that Korea can still compete in the action genre, there’s enough slicing and dicing here to satisfy any fan of the genre, and hopefully even create some new ones. 

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7/10