Two Blades

Got an Asian martial arts double-bill for you. First up: Dragon Blade (2015), an East-meets-West drama, with John Cusack as West and Jackie Chan as East. Chan plays a protector of the peace on the Silk Road. He is first seen breaking up a fight between Huns (?) and Indians (?) - which involves him fighting an angry Hun woman, and accidentally grabbing her tits and ripping off her veil. That means they are married - Oh, Jackie!

But his squad is framed for corruption, and they are exiled as slave labor to repair the walls of a city. One day, a Roman legion lead by John Cusack shows up, exhausted, with a blond, blind boy-prince. So Jackie Chan goes out to fight - or to not fight, since he's a peacemaker. After some desultory fighting, Jackie convinces Cusack to drop his sword and they enter the city.

This has to remind you of The Great Wall. It has a number of similar scenes - the sword dropping surrender, the "dance-offs" where each group does a little display of their martial skills. My guess is that this is just China wanting to make international hits, and this is their formula.

Anyway, this gets pretty dark, especially when we're talking about Adrian Brody, who blinded the boy to secure his claim to the Imperial throne. But do you really get from Rome to the kingdom of the Parthians through China?

Once again, this isn't really a great film (too serious?), but I did love the Buddhist message of peace, hope, and friendship.

The Sword Identity (2011) is a different, odder beast. It is about a Chinese coastal city that had a problem with Japanese pirates a generation ago. Things have quieted down now, and the leading five martial arts schools have gotten sloppy and complacent. The town's guards have to use papier-mache armor, because metal is for the Imperial Army. A stranger (Song Yang) comes to town with a new fighting style, a new weapon. By tradition, he has to fight his way past all four schools so that he can set up his own school. But it isn't that simple.

His weapon is kind of cool - a samurai sword about 8-feet long, but - here's the kicker - it only has an edge on the last 2-3 feet, so you can hold it by the middle of the blade and work it like a quarterstaff. Yang's mentor intuited that the samurai technique was based on polework, and set out to combat it.

Once our hero gets chased off by the schools, he hides out with a Romany (Indian?) dancing girl on a houseboat in the canal. He decides to teach her to fight, so he gives her his sword sheath, sits her by the curtained door with the end sticking out and tells her to swing up when she hears someone approach. Then he sneaks out the back. For most of the rest of the movie she demolishes every challenger - and everyone thins it's Yang. They've started calling him the Japanese Pirate, because of his sword.

So, in some senses this is a serious martial arts film. The director, Xiu Haofeng, is a serious martial artist, who was reportedly trying to make his fights more realistic. It is also a "art house" movie, where the camera may drift from the fight to the dead lotus leaves in the canal, and only show you a few of the feet. But it is also very silly - our Japanese Pirate (who is neither) next captures the whole town guard and makes them wade through the canals all night, basically just to tire them out. But he also attacks them with his "Japanese" sword to see if their old tactic of close shield and spear work can defend against the Japanese (if they ever show up). He is happy to find that it is successful, even when used by idiots.

So. there's a little something here for everyone - some realistic (not too flashy) fights, some comedy, some romance.