I went to this movie shortly after seeing the insanely funny subtitled Chinese movie "The Iceman Cometh," also reviewed at this site. I had high hopes for a similarly hilarious experience. "Swordsman" wasn't even close to being as funny, but aficionados of bad movies will appreciate it for its wooden acting, leaden dialogue, and unbelievably badly done ending. Watching it alone would probably be physically painful, but it is a lot of fun if you're with a crowd of jeering hecklers.

It is basically a Chinese western, down to the setting in a small desert town besieged by horse-riding banditos. A young man arrives at Double Flag Town (which, yes, has two flags outside it, for no explained reason). He has come to marry a girl there, but she doesn't like him, her family doesn't like him, and he doesn't get along very well with her or any of them either. The question therefore springs to mind, why is he marrying her?

The hero wears two swords stuck to his legs and has been taught an amazing mystical technique of swordsmanship. He demonstrates this by -- how can I put this? -- whacking a sword into a beef carcass which is hanging outside the butcher's. It is unbelievable. There is literally no evidence of mystical skill, technique, or anything else. However, knowing how these movies tend to work, we all go "Oooh!" and wait expectantly for spotty geezer to reveal himself as the Ultimate Warrior, as will undoubtedly happen.

The horse riding banditos, in the meantime, have carefully studied their Small Town Assault Handbook and present themselves to attack the heroine and threaten her aged father. Spotty Geezer fails to ward them off, and his fiancee subsequently cuts her hair off and disguises herself as a boy. I'm not quite sure why, since everyone in the town AND her attackers know who she is, but there you go.

Now the scene is set for the big revenge fight in which our hero will put everything right, win her love, and defeat the bad guy. The movie wanders to its predictable climax...but you've never seen anything like this ending.

Now remember, throughout the movie, we have constantly been told how awesomely mystical this guy's swordfighting is. He hasn't actually done any swordfighting, but we just KNOW there is going to be the fight to end all fights. It's called "The Swordsman In Double Flag Town," right?

The head bandito rides into town. There stands the Swordsman, defying him heroically. High noon! The music swells to an exciting crescendo. The bandito draws his swords. The Swordsman draws his swords. They swing their swords back to start this amazing, mystical fight to end all fights...and a MYSTICAL CLOUD OF DUST comes out of nowhere and envelopes them both!

For about ten minutes, we are treated to the ultimate in exciting fight scenes. We are, literally, staring at a motionless cloud of dust in the middle of a deserted town square, from which emanates the official Sword Fight Sound Effects Track. I have never, never seen anything like this before. After a long, long time, you hear the official Bad Guy Going Aaakk And Dying soundtrack, the mystical cloud goes away, and our hero is standing there triumphant.

This is the most pointless movie I have ever seen. I just couldn't believe anyone would go to all the trouble of making a movie and then end it like that. I have the impression they had almost finished filming when the actors admitted neither of them knew anything about sword fighting, and this is how they got around that problem. What a great movie. I give it three turkeys.

Response From RinkWorks:

Wow. Now that is insane.