SWORDSMAN 2 (1992)
Directed by: Ching Siu-tung
Produced by: Tsui Hark
Starring: Jet Li, Rosamund Kwan, Brigette Lin, Michelle Reis, Fennie Yuen Kit-ying, Chin Kar-lok, Waise Lee Chi-hung, Carina Lau
Like a great pop song that gets more profound with every listen, Swordsman 2 has more on its mind than ninjas riding giant throwing stars through blue-lit forests fighting whip-wielding women who fling snakes at them, but it does have plenty of that kind of thing to keep you entertained while you ponder its grander themes like the absolute corruption of absolute power.
Jet Li and Michelle Reis play two swordspeople who’re retiring from the martial world because Li likes to drink all day and Michelle likes to scold him, and the two of them have a good thing going with this routine and want to keep at it with no outside interruptions except for their eight brothers who’re retiring with them, but they all like to drink and scold as well, so that shouldn’t be a problem for anyone. Unfortunately, one of Li’s old flames, Ying (Rosamund Kwan), has had her father, Wu, kidnapped by the sketchy Sun Moon sect. Suddenly Li gets pulled into the midst of a power struggle that will play football with his heart and soul as he comes up against crazed minority spokesperson, Asia the Invincible (played with icy authority by Brigette Lin), and Ying’s dad, who has gone insane from his years of confinement and torture at the hands of Asia. Wu wants revenge, and although Jet and his brothers don’t want to help, you know how crazy people are: they can’t take no for an answer. Needless to say, things get messy, and it’s not just from the giant hooks Wu likes to whack into people’s backs.
Ching Sui-tung and Tsui Hark are the Douglas Sirk and Ross Hunter of the martial arts movie, and Swordsman 2 is their masterpiece with Tsui’s slick production style harnessing Ching’s straight-from-the-id, free-association film making. The movie unfolds like a beautiful nightmare, all the action adhering to a loopy logic, as affairs of the heart and soul are played out on a grand scale. It helps that Jet Li and Brigette Lin are perhaps the greatest pair of star-crossed lovers in all of moviedom. Aside from the obvious complications (he wants to retire, she wants to rule the world) they are further separated by the fact that they’re both playing men.
Lin already had a long career behind her as a dramatic actress in the HKSAR and Taiwan when she made this film and although the steely-eyed, sexually ambivalent Asia the Invincible became her best-known role, it took a bit of convincing on behalf of Hark to get her to take the part. He even waited until halfway through production before telling her that her voice would be dubbed by a man. Lin trusted Hark, however, and although she never quite understood the appeal of Asia the Invincible, she was game. She even jokingly worried that in her last scene she spewed so much blood that she would have none left for other movies.