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Directed by Daniel Lee. Starring Donnie Yen, Wei Zhao, Damian Lau, Ma Wu, Kate Tsui, Sammo Hung. Martial Arts/Action, China, 108 mins, cert 15.

Released 16 August 2010, £17.99 (DVD & Blu Ray)

It is the Ming Dynasty, the Emperor has created a secret guard known as the Jinyiwei made up of street orphans forcibly recruited and trained to become fearsome assassins who will act on the most ruthless orders. Their leader Qinglong (Yen), is given a box containing 14 blades, eight of which are used for torture, five for execution, and the final golden blade is to take his own life should he fail his mission.

Qinglong is sent to seize a box from a noble containing evidence of treachery against the Emperor. Meanwhile exiled Prince Qing (Hung) plots to rebel against the Emperor dispatching adopted daughter and assassin Tuo Tuo (Tsui) to steal the emperor’s seal. Qinglong is betrayed by the Emperor’s advisor Jia - the evidence of treason is in fact the Emperor’s seal - and must go on the run pursued by his own guards and Qing’s assassin.

Wounded Qinglong tries to hide in plain sight by hiring an escort company. However during an attack by bandits he is forced to reveal his identity and takes the agency leader’s daughter Qiao (Zhao) hostage. Together Qinglong and his resourceful hostage go on the run.

Confused yet? I was. All you need to know is that a taciturn anti-hero is forced into an unwilling alliance with a maiden to escape bad guys who want a mystical widget for vague reasons never explained.

To say 14 Blades is a bit of a mess is like calling the Great Wall of China moderately imposing. This synopsis covers 20 minutes of the film and I confess I needed the aid of the press release to piece it together. This is the sort of movie that you can tell is in trouble, because characters keep trying – and failing - to summarise the plot. Frankly I had no idea what was going on much of the time.

The film has no idea what it wants to be. It starts as a Wuxia film; all historical costumes and wirework. Then Qinglong goes on the run, chucking his amour and his little hat, and with a shake of a hairpiece Nic Cage would laugh out of the make-up truck, he turns into a Chinese Jack Sparrow. Once on the run, the film promptly turns into a Chinese spaghetti western complete with twangy guitar soundtrack. This would be alright except that Korea’s THE GOOD THE BAD THE WEIRD did this about a thousand times better. Suddenly Qinglong and Qiao run into a band of Teenage Hair-flicking Fashion Bandits who look for all the world like an Adam and the Ants tribute act. The Fashion Bandit’s leader has a big fight with Quiglong, in which they mutually kick each others arses all over the shop, then decide to work together doing something, for some reason, against some guy. Look, I was really struggling by this point; I felt like someone’s gran trying to watch INCEPTION. Who? What? Why? Eh?

Perhaps I could get over the sartorial weirdness of the film and its incomprehensible plot if the action was good, but it isn’t. Donnie Yen was one of the stars of Woo-Ping’s fabulous IRON MONKEY and is one of the best performers in current Asian action cinema. Fight fans might see the names Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung on the cover of this and reasonably expect them to get their groove on. Well don’t get excited, Hung appears for about three minutes.

Apart from the disappointment of having Sammo Hung in a film and not having him do any kung fu, the actual fight scenes in 14 Blades are disappointing. Blighted by poor editing and too much CG. Yen is a master – but he has been hobbled by having several key fights with Kate Tsui, a former Miss Hong Kong. It is painfully obvious that the scenes are being cut around her lack of fighting chops.

Also (at least on the Blu Ray release) the film looks really, really weird. I don’t know if this is down to a post-production effect , or the result of a really bad HD transfer, but constant halos can be seen and are particularly noticeable in the high contrast desert scenes. There is a strange silvery effect that makes individual beads of sweat look like mercury and the blood is purple. Remember in old films where directors shot day for night due to the technical limitations of available film stocks? Well this film looks like that, only in daylight. It’s really weird and highly distracting and does not appear on the trailer included as an extra.

I was really looking forward to this, I love martial arts films, and I really like Donnie Yen, but I can’t count 14 Blades as anything other than a crushing disappointment. Check out IRON MONKEY, KILL ZONE or IP MAN to see what Yen is really capable of. 14 Blades is a poor showcase.

Extras: making of, trailer.

Stuart Barr.

 

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