Specme me some good old sword on sword action!

Le_Petit_Lapin

Le_Petit_Lapin

Le_Petit_Lapin

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Just had a sudden desire to watch a load of muscly men with swords beating each other senseless (ooo-err! :o ), so I might nip dow to the shops tomorrow to grab a load of DVD's to keep me entertained over Xmas, during those quiet moments when everyone has stuffed their little faces and can't be arsed doing anything.

My list isnt very long at the minute:

Gladiator, Rome (series), Master and Commander, 300, Kingdom of Heaven.

All bloody obvious stuff I think you'll agree. Anyway, anything set earlier than the 1800's can go on it, I dont want to see no tanks or guns that you dont have to reload without getting a bag of powder out. And no bloody Robin Hood! :D

Looking forward to hanging my head in shame at some of the bloody obvious reccommendations that are likely to come up. :o
 
You considered japanese (or asian) films? Things like azumi (albeit a female lead), versus, gojoe, sky high all have a fairly large sword play portion.
 
Azagoth said:
Highlander?
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Way too cheezy.....and I've seen them too many times already... :o

rotters said:
hornblower and sharpe series??
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Ooh, yes good call. Never got round to watching these though.

lsg1r said:
You considered japanese (or asian) films? Things like azumi (albeit a female lead), versus, gojoe, sky high all have a fairly large sword play portion.
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Err...I dunno. I find a lot of asian stuff can be very hit or miss for me. But I'll stick em on the list and if the shops even have them, I'll give it a shot. :)
 
Spartacus
King Arthur
The Duellists
Waterloo.....After your 1800 cut-off date, but worth a look. All musketry and cavalry charges. No cgi either, just tens of thousands of extras done up to the nines and having a wail of a time.
 
If you are interested in some Chinese history and wouldn't mind listening to Mandarin and reading English subtitles, hows about John Woo's latest epic and China's & even Asia's currently most expensive film, "Red Cliff".

As the title suggests, this film is based upon one of Ancient China's greatest historic battles, The Battle of Red Cliff in 208 A.D during the fall of the Han Dynasty and the beginning of the turbulent Three Kingdoms period.

This film blends elements of actual history along with fictional elements, some of which have came from the 14th Century novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a fictionalised historical account of this 3rd Century era. If you've also played the Dynasty Warriors videogames, the setting should be quite familiar.

Red Cliff is also a two part movie, the first with the forementioned title already released since July, and the second will be out in China next year on January. A Western release has also been planned where it will be edited and shortened as it will combine both movies together.

If you can manage to find the original first part of the film, maybe check out import stores or something, I recommend you highly watch it. Lots of great action, ancient Chinese tactical formations, a great showcase of Ancient China itself, and not to mention it is John Woo's return to a Chinese made film in ages after he left Hong Kong and spent his time in Hollywood.
 
Shichinin No Samurai (Seven Samurai) should be on your list, ok it isn't strictly big burly men in the 300/Gladiator sense but it's a brilliant film.

Hero/Fearless/Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon all have a lot of swordfighting in them so might fit what you want partially.
 
Phatjayunoi said:
If you are interested in some Chinese history and wouldn't mind listening to Mandarin and reading English subtitles, hows about John Woo's latest epic and China's & even Asia's currently most expensive film, "Red Cliff".

As the title suggests, this film is based upon one of Ancient China's greatest historic battles, The Battle of Red Cliff in 208 A.D during the fall of the Han Dynasty and the beginning of the turbulent Three Kingdoms period.

This film blends elements of actual history along with fictional elements, some of which have came from the 14th Century novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a fictionalised historical account of this 3rd Century era. If you've also played the Dynasty Warriors videogames, the setting should be quite familiar.

Red Cliff is also a two part movie, the first with the forementioned title already released since July, and the second will be out in China next year on January. A Western release has also been planned where it will be edited and shortened as it will combine both movies together.

If you can manage to find the original first part of the film, maybe check out import stores or something, I recommend you highly watch it. Lots of great action, ancient Chinese tactical formations, a great showcase of Ancient China itself, and not to mention it is John Woo's return to a Chinese made film in ages after he left Hong Kong and spent his time in Hollywood.
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This sounds really good, thanks for talking about it. And I found somewhere to get it ;) :D

Do you know any other films like this, apart from from Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Crouching Tiger?
 
House of flying daggers has to be in this list :)

Can't remember what these films are like; The Seven Swordsmen, The Last Samurai, Troy.
 
Le_Petit_Lapin said:
Looks like I'd better take a big backpack with me! :D

Speaking of Hero, did anyone else find it left them feeling a bit "meh" by the end?
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Yeah it was quite dissapointing, but then it serves to the whole honour aspect of the film's genre. From what I saw, most Western viewers not used to this genre were probably dissapointed due to the way the U.S trailers were edited to make the film look better than it really was. They thought it was an all out action piece.

Arjun806 said:
This sounds really good, thanks for talking about it. And I found somewhere to get it ;) :D

Do you know any other films like this, apart from from Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Crouching Tiger?
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The films you mentioned are more of the modern "Wuxia" genre, i.e. historical fantasy, honourable swordsman with wire-fu. It is quite hard to find certain films that are not of this genre, and based more on grounded historical realism like Red Cliff.

Only other films I can think of is "The Warlords" (2007) which ironically also star the same actors from those listed films, Jet Li, Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro. This film is set in around Qing Dynasty 1860's.

Another historical fiction film, is "A Battle of Wits" (2006), set around 370 B.C during the Warring States Period. This also staring Andy Lau :D!

If you want another Wuxia film, there is what would be like a Chinese version of the Seven Samurai called appropriately, ..... "Seven Swords" (2005), directed by Tsui Hark. This film is set in the mid-1600's just around the beginning of the Qing Dynasty itself. Its also originally supposed to be 4 hours long but got cut in half.

Meh...., too many Chinese films don't you think? But then when it comes to old fashioned epic sword films, they have the rich history and decades of period pieces to back it up.

One film I still haven't seen yet but took my interest is 2007's "Mongol". Apparently the first of a trilogy about Genghis Khan, so hopefully that is interesting. And its directed by a Russian :p.
 
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