The Sword

Li Mak-jan sets out to duel Hua Qian Shu, reckoned the finest swordsman in the country. What he wants is not fame but to measure himself. On the road he runs into a former lover, an old friend and a sword everyone is after. Who the sword belongs to, who is using whom, and what anyone actually wants get steadily more tangled. Patrick Tam's film is one of the first productions of the Hong Kong new wave. Tam belonged to the generation moving from television into cinema in those years, and he took the wuxia form outside its usual shape: short fights, hard cutting, colour and empty space to the front. Adam Cheng takes the lead. The telling manufactures no heroism; it shows the price of chasing mastery.