K and the Dagger

More Asian movies while Ms. K is working. First, Detective K: Secret of the Lost Island (2015), the second of the Detective K series. 

It starts with Detective K exiled on an island - if he leaves, he may be executed. But an old buddy tries to convince him to help out in a counterfeit silver crisis. A lot of the silver being imported from Japan turns out to be bogus. But K refuses.

There is also a young girl who turns up, begging K to help find her sister who has gone missing. Again, K won't help, so she moves in and starts cooking and cleaning for him. Her name means "Do everything". 

He is finally convinces to sneak off the island, and bumos into a beautiful geisha. His comment: "Squishy." He later accepts a slap as the penalty for copping a feel. This is funny, until you realize that young girls are being trafficked for sex, and rejects are being used to work the poisonous process of fake silver. Sexual assault not so funny now, hm?

I enjoyed this, but the jokes didn't always sit well with some of the horrors being depicted.

Nine-Ring Golden Dagger (2024) is not funny at all. It starts in the Song dynasty with a battle, where the General of the Song forces takes on all comers with his nine-ring golden dagger - actually a glaive - like a heavy sword on a pole. He kills many but is finally brought down. The weapon goes to the Liao.

Years later, his daughter vows to retrieve this "nation-stabilizing" weapon. Her sister fights her (big wirework number), and finally agrees to assist her. 

At an inn on the border, we meet the owner, a Song veteran living in a foreign land. His patrons always want to fight him because he's unbeatable. He fights then sings a song about just trying to entertain his customers as an exile in a foreign land. Of course, the sisters will find him, fight him, and then join with him to retrieve the weapon.

This is full of fights, mostly well staged if not astounding. There is one fight, however, that is staged more as a dance - just the two warriors in the empty inn, with a spotlight, trading attacks and parries in a stylized choreographed way. This was a nice treat, and I would have liked to see more interesting treatments. 

This is director Feng Xiaojun's first film. He can definitely film action - his battle scenes are particularly good. There's a little extra creativity there as well. I'd like to see more.