TIFF 2011: THE SWORD IDENTITY by Xu Haofeng

Here’s something for all martial arts fans out there. I’m a little bit afraid of you, so I’m gonna be nice this time.

Xu Haofeng‘s The Sword Identity is fascinating debut from the acclaimed novelist and co-writer of Wong Kar Wai, and one of the titles that had some good time at Venice Film Festival (Horizons section), as well at this year’s TIFF.

So, that’s enough for me to share some great photos from the whole thing, and a few interesting clips.

I admit I’m not impressed by this movie, but still, there are pretty good reviews for the movie so, as I said, I’m not going to be hater. Haofeng is probably the most exciting author of martial arts literature to have emerged in China in the past decade. His one-man mission to restore the true meaning of martial arts has opened up a new era for China’s best loved genre.

Xu Haofeng’s The Sworn Idenitity is a martial arts film set in 1604 in the late Ming dinasty. One of its key achievements is its recreation of the real martial arts of the period, including the weapons and their style of use. It stands in sharp contrast to the stylised martial arts of recent blockbusters that take their inspiration from dance performance.

It presents “hard-style” martial arts in which a fight is decided in a single flurry of action. The screenplay is based on one of the director’s own novels, but in the transition to the screen Xu transformed its characters, giving the film a completely new spiritual theme.

This sounds even better when you press play button on Mortal Combat theme, trust me…

Or, if you prefer an official synopsis part: “Once upon a time in the Southern Chinese city of Guancheng, there lived four families, each of them faithful keepers of martial arts. Anyone who wanted to establish a new school, or a new form of kung fu, had to fight his way through the family’s gates.

Two swordsmen enter the city to request a competition and start their own school, their strange new weapons are mistaken for Japanese swords and therefore forbidden by purist Chinese masters as a foreign fighting device. They are accused of being Japanese pirates by the masters of the martial arts schools. Facing arrest, the swordsmen must prove the value of swordsmanship by defeating the masters and a living legend who has returned from exile in the mountains.”