Wild Swords
无名狂
China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 91 mins.
Director: Li Yunbo 李云波.
Rating: 7/10.
A confident, fresh take on the wuxia genre that’s flawed only by weak plot development.
STORY
Somewhere in southern China, Ming dynasty, Wanli era, late 16th century. A feud has lasted for centuries between the Nameless Sect 无名门, founded in the Tang dynasty, and the Tang Sect 唐门, founded in the Song dynasty. During a Mid-Autumn Festival, Zhang Weiran (Shang Bai), a Nameless Sect disciple, is sent to murder the heir to the Tang Sect. He succeeds in his mission and then vanishes. Years later there’s a saying in the martial-arts world: “Whoever catches Guo Changsheng will also catch Zhang Weiran.” On 18 Aug, in a rainy bamboo forest, the famous outlaw Guo Changsheng (Zhang Xiaochen) is hunted down by a skilful pursuer and next day is dumped in a sack, along with 600 taels of silver, at Weiyuan Escorts with instructions to take him to a certain address. En route, the escort has a meal at a roadside inn, where Tang Jie, a member of the Tang Sect, tells the escort leader, Wang Yidao (Zhao Jian), that he is looking for Zhang Weiran. A voice from a masked swordsman at another table says, “I am Zhang Weiran.” Tang Jie challenges him to a fight and ends up dead. All of this is observed from upstairs by an epicene young man, Tang Wuque (Xiao Zimo), a senior member of the Tang Sect. Afterwards, the masked swordsman, Bai Xiaotian (Sui Yongliang), says he is not Zhang Weiran but he is looking for Zhang Weiran. (He was once a member of the Nameless Sect, and Zhang Weiran had been the one fighter he couldn’t beat even though Zhang Weiran never practised and just sat around reading and drinking. Both of them had liked the same female disciple, Xiaoshimei [Liu Yongxi]. Finally, the two had taken part in a life-or-death duel in front of the Grand Master [Shen Baoping] to decide who would become his heir. However, everyone at the event had been poisoned by the Tang Sect, and only he and Zhang Weiran managed to survive after the Nameless Sect’s HQ was burned down. Zhang Weiran had then disappeared; but Bai Xiaotian was still determined to kill him. He also knew that Zhang Weiran’s best friend, Guo Changsheng, would come looking for him.) On 26 Aug the escort arrives at its destination, a Nameless Sect temple, where some of the party are killed with poisoned incense by the Tang Sect. Guo Changsheng says the story told by Bai Xiaotian is not true; Zhang Weiran had told him a different one. (There had been sexual tension between the two men and Xiaoshimei, who had been playing one off against the other. After the mass poisoning and the burning of the Nameless Sect’s HQ, Zhang Weiran had become disillusioned and wanted to give up the martial-arts world. It was during his wanderings that he met Guo Changsheng.) Guo Changsheng says Zhang Weiran is now dead, and someone has been impersonating him and committing crimes in his name.
REVIEW
A confident, fresh take on the wuxia genre that’s flawed only by some weak plot development, Wild Swords 无名狂 still retains, like the best homages, that feeling of opening up and reading a classic swordplay novel. Despite his background as a film critic and festival programmer, Mainland film-maker Li Yunbo 李云波 is neither off-puttingly arty nor self-consciously smart in his approach, and, although it’s only his second feature – following low-budget youth yarn Something in Blue 呼呼吸正常 (2016), set in Guangzhou – it has none of the technical lumpiness or narrative obscurities that plagued the early neo-wuxia pian by Xu Haofeng 徐浩峰 (The Sword Identity 倭寇的踪迹, 2011; Judge Archer 箭士柳白猿, 2012). Instead, and with no less a name than Feng Xiaogang 冯小刚 credited as creative producer 监制, Li settles for trying to catch the traditional essence of the genre, in the same way as Reign of Assassins 剑雨 (2010) or the two Brotherhood of Blades 绣春刀 films (2014, 2017), though in a more pared-down way. Alas, after a couple of festival outings, Wild Swords was unceremoniously dumped online in late August.
Coming up with an original spin on the wuxia genre is not so easy in an era that’s become rather unfriendly to traditional swordplay movies (at least on the big screen) and has mostly made the genre just an excuse for VFX overload. Of the past decade’s three examples listed above, only Brotherhood of Blades II: The Infernal Battlefield 绣春刀II 修罗战场 (2017) did even a respectable amount of business (RMB266 million), and an equally fine but much artier riff, The Assassin 刺客聂隐娘 (2015, dir. Hou Xiaoxian 侯孝贤), performed blandly in the Mainland with just over RMB60 million. Unlike veteran auteur Hou, Li has no established style on which to spin off his take on the genre; instead, he chooses a series of classic situations and settings (a roadside inn, training school, pupil rivalry, masked swordsman, final showdown, and so on) and repackages them in a spare, sometimes quietly humorous way.
There’s nothing revolutionary here, nor anything over-ambitious: it’s a take that can appeal to film buffs as well as a more general public, as it makes sense on its own terms, not just as a homage or parody. Li knows his martial arts films and manages to create a singular work from disparate elements – a percussive, opera-like soundtrack of woodblock, drums and bells, a simmering atmosphere in which the audience never quite knows what will come next, and a scattering of familiar types (cackling baddies, an epicene villain, an enigmatic heroine, ambitious swordsmen) and familiar landscapes (bamboo forest, open plains, long grass).
Apart from a slight dip midway, Li successfully sustains an atmosphere of mystery and suspense for most of the film’s succinct running time. More questionable is his resolution of the plot – rival clans searching for a swordsman/assassin who’s gone AWOL – which revolves round different versions of the truth, unreliable witnesses, swapped identities and disillusionment with the martial arts world. As well as the final showdown is staged, there’s still a feeling that it’s tacked on, and not reached by a natural resolution of the story’s various elements, several of which don’t get a proper workout. One can keep one’s audience bamboozled and in the dark for only so long.
Of the largely young, unstarry cast, Zhang Xiaochen 张晓晨, 37, makes a likeable outlaw who’s the best lead towards finding the missing swordsman; Shang Bai 上白 (aka Zhao Jun 赵骏), 30, ditto as the latter in younger days, a variation on the drunken-beggar swordsman; 27-year-old Liu Yongxi 刘泳希 (the guzheng player in lively youth comedy Our Shining Days 闪光少女, 2017) is fine, without being especially strong, as the enigmatic woman between the two male leads; and TV/theatre actor Zhao Jian 赵健 (so good as the pirate leader in Legend of the Naga Pearls 鲛珠传, 2017) suitably bluff and down-to-earth as the escort leader. Taiwan’s Xiao Zimo 萧子墨 (aka Xiao Chuanxun 萧传勋) pops up here and there as an epicene baddie whose role could have been more developed.
Li squeezes the most out of an obviously slim budget thanks to a fine crew. In clean but atmospheric photography that’s very different from his handheld work on The Crossing 过春天 (2018), the versatile Piao Songri 朴松日 is equally at home in a shadowy inn or temple as in a rainy bamboo forest or windy plain, while action directors Qin Pengfei 秦鹏飞 (God of War 荡寇风云, 2017) and Du Xiaohui 杜晓辉 create economic sequences that aren’t flashy but have the desired effect.
The film was originally to have premiered in the Nocturne (genre) section of the Pingyao festival in Nov 2019 but, due to its lack of a release certificate (longbiao) at that time, it ended up premiering a month later at the Hainan Island festival.
CREDITS
Presented by Huzhou Youhang Film (CN), Suzhou Junlu Film Industry (CN), Guangzhou GoodFellas (CN). Produced by Huzhou Youhang Film (CN).
Script: Li Yunbo. Photography: Piao Songri. Editing: Matthieu Laclau, Zhang Yifan, Yang Hao. Music: Wang Jia’nan. Production design: Peng Fan. Art direction: Pan Xichen. Costumes: Zhao Xiao, Ma Liman. Styling: Du Ran. Sound: Hu Jianzhong, Li Yan. Action: Qin Pengfei, Du Xiaohui. Visual effects: Guo Siliang. Executive direction: Qie Guowei.
Cast: Zhang Xiaochen (Guo Changsheng), Liu Yongxi (Xiaoshimei), Sui Yongliang (Bai Xiaotian), Shang Bai [Zhao Jun] (Zhang Weiran), Xiao Zimo (Tang Wuque), Shen Baoping (Grand Master), Zhao Jian (Wang Yidao, escort leader), Wang Yuwai (Xiaohou), Wang Xiaolong (Sun), Chen Anran (Shi), Zhang Anqi (Min), Jin Junxiu (Tang Wuxin/Tang the Heartless), Xu Shaowu (Tang Zhengming), Huang Haochao (Tang Hou).
Premiere: Hainan Island Film Festival (China Panorama), 4 Dec 2019.
Release: China, 27 Aug 2020 (online).