The Swordsman

Tae-yul, once a palace guard who lost everything in a coup, lives on a mountain with his daughter and is slowly going blind. When a Qing delegation collecting young women from Joseon reaches the area and takes her, he picks up the sword again. Rather than detail the historical background, Choi Jae-hoon puts the budget into fight choreography, and the fights are tight, fast and almost entirely with blades. Jang Hyuk does his own fighting and carries the blindness without overplaying it. On the other side is Joe Taslim as the Qing envoy, and the meeting of those two performers is the film's reason to exist. The story is simple and makes no secret of it. Who it is for: viewers who like Korean martial films and single-purpose revenge stories. Who it is not for: anyone expecting historical depth.